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A   HAPPY   HALF-CENTURY 

AND   OTHER   ESSAYS 


HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY 


AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 


BY 


AGNES  REPPLIER,  LITT.  D. 


OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY   j 

OF 

.CALIFOR^ 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  19081  BY   AGNES   REPPLIKR 
ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  September  iqoS 


TO 
J.   WILLIAM   WHITE 


PREFACE 

THE  half -century,  whose  more  familiar  aspects 
this  little  book  is  designed  to  illustrate,  has 
spread  its  boundary  lines.  Nothing  is  so  hard 
to  deal  with  as  a  period.  Nothing  is  so  un 
manageable  as  a  date.  People  will  be  born  a 
few  years  too  early  ;  they  will  live  a  few  years 
too  long.  Events  will  happen  out  of  time.  The 
closely  linked  decades  refuse  to  be  separated, 
and  my  half -century,  that  I  thought  so  com 
pact,  widened  imperceptibly  while  I  wrote. 

I  have  filled-  my  canvas  with  trivial  things, 
with  intimate  details,  with  what  now  seem  the 
insignificant  aspects  of  life.  But  the  insignifi 
cant  aspects  of  life  concern  us  mightily  while 
we  live ;  and  it  is  by  their  help  that  we  under 
stand  the  insignificant  people  who  are  some 
times  reckoned  of  importance.  A  hundred 
years  ago  many  men  and  women  were  reckoned 
of  importance,  at  whose  claims  their  successors 
to-day  smile  scornfully.  Yet  they  and  their 


viii  PREFACE 

work  were  woven  into  the  tissue  of  things,  into 
the  warp  and  woof  of  social  conditions,  into 
the  literary  history  of  England.  An  hour  is 
not  too  precious  to  waste  upon  them,  however 
feeble  their  pretensions.  Perhaps  some  idle 
reader  in  the  future  will  do  as  much  by  us. 

A.  R. 


CONTENTS 

A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY         .        .        .                .  1 

THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY        .        .        .        .  16 

WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG  ....  32 

THE  CORRESPONDENT 51 

THE  NOVELIST 73 

ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS      ....  94 

THE  LITERARY  LADY 116 

THE  CHILD 138 

THE  EDUCATOR 155 

THE  PIETIST 177 

THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL 196 

OUR  ACCOMPLISHED  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER  .        .  217 

THE  ALBUM  AMICORUM 234 


"A  Happy  Half-Century,"  "The  Perils  of  Immortality,"  and  "The 
Correspondent  "  appeared  first  in  Harper's  Magazine,  "  Our  Accom 
plished  Great-Grandmother"  in  Harper's  Bazar,  and  "On  the  Slopes 
of  Parnassus-'  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly;  they  are  here  reprinted  by 
permission  of  the  publishers  of  those  magazines. 


A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY 

This  damn'd  unmasculine  canting  age ! 

CHARLES  LAMB. 

THERE  are  few  of  us  who  do  not  occasionally 
wish  we  had  been  born  in  other  days,  in  days 
for  which  we  have  some  secret  affinity,  and 
which  shine  for  us  with  a  mellow  light  in  the 
deceitful  pages  of  history.  Mr.  Austin  Dobson, 
for  example,  must  have  sighed  more  than  once 
to  see  Queen  Anne  on  Queen  Victoria's  throne; 
and  the  Kt.  Hon.  Cecil  Rhodes  must  have  real 
ized  that  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  was  the  reign 
for  him.  There  is  a  great  deal  lost  in  being 
born  out  of  date.  What  freak  of  fortune  thrust 
Galileo  into  the  world  three  centuries  too  soon, 
and  held  back  Richard  Burton's  restless  soul 
until  he  was  three  centuries  too  late? 

For  myself,  I  confess  that  the  last  twenty- 
five  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the 
first  twenty-five  years  of  the  nineteenth  make 
up  my  chosen  period,  and  that  my  motive  for 
so  choosing  is  contemptible.  It  was  not  a 


2  A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY 

time  distinguished  —  in  England  at  least  — 
for  wit  or  wisdom,  for  public  virtues  or  for 
private  charm  ;  but  it  was  a  time  when  literary 
reputations  were  so  cheaply  gained  that  nobody 
needed  to  despair  of  one.  A  taste  for  platitudes, 
a  tinge  of  Pharisaism,  an  appreciation  of  the 
commonplace,  —  and  the  thing  was  done.  It 
was  in  the  latter  half  of  this  blissful  period 
that  we  find  that  enthusiastic  chronicler,  Mrs. 
Cowley,  writing  in  "Public  Characters"  of 
"  the  proud  preeminence  which,  in  all  the  vari 
eties  of  excellence  produced  by  the  pen,  the 
pencil,  or  the  lyre,  the  ladies  of  Great  Britain 
have  attained  over  contemporaries  in  every 
other  country  in  Europe." 

When  we  search  for  proofs  of  this  proud 
preeminence,  what  do  we  find?  Roughly  speak 
ing,  the  period  begins  with  Miss  Burney,  and 
closes  with  Miss  Ferrier  and  Miss  Jane  Por 
ter.  It  includes  —  besides  Miss  Burney  — 
one  star  of  the  first  magnitude,  Miss  Austen 
(whose  light  never  dazzled  Mrs.  Cowley's  eyes), 
and  one  mild  but  steadfast  planet,  Miss  Edge- 
worth.  The  rest  of  Great  Britain's  literary 
ladies  were  enjoying  a  degree  of  fame  and  for- 


A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY  3 

tune  so  utterly  disproportionate  to  their  merits 
that  their  toiling  successors  to-day  may  be  par 
doned  for  wishing  themselves  part  of  that 
happy  sisterhood.  Think  of  being  able  to  find 
a  market  for  an  interminable  essay  entitled 
"Against  Inconsistency  in  our  Expectations"! 
There  lingers  in  all  our  hearts  a  desire  to  utter 
moral  platitudes,  to  dwell  lingeringly  and  lov 
ingly  upon  the  obvious  ;  but  alas !  we  are  not 
Mrs.  Barbaulds,  and  this  is  not  the  year  1780. 
Foolish  and  inconsequent  we  are  permitted  to 
be',  but  tedious,  never !  And  think  of  hearing 
one's  own  brother  burst  into  song,  that  he 
might  fondly  eulogize  our 

Sacred  gifts  whose  meed  is  deathless  praise, 
Whose  potent  charm  the  enraptured  soul  can  raise. 

There  are  few  things  more  difficult  to  conceive 
than  an  enthusiastic  brother  tunefully  entreat 
ing  his  sister  to  go  on  enrapturing  the  world 
with  her  pen.  Oh,  thrice-favoured  Anna  Le- 
titia  Barbauld,  who  could  warm  even  the  calm 
fraternal  heart  into  a  glow  of  sensibility. 

The  publication  of  "  Evelina  "  was  the  first 
notable  event  in  our  happy  half-century.  Its 
freshness  and  vivacity  charmed  all  London; 


4  A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY 

and  Miss  Burney,  like  Sheridan,  had  her  ap 
plause  "  clashed  in  her  face,  sounded  in  her 
ears,"  for  the  rest  of  a  long  and  meritorious 
life.  Her  second  novel,  "  Cecilia,"  was  received 
with  such  universal  transport,  that  in  a  very 
moral  epilogue  of  a  rather  immoral  play  we 
find  it  seriously  commended  to  the  public  as 
an  antidote  to  vice :  — 

Let  sweet  Cecilia  gain  your  just  applause, 
Whose  every  passiou  yields  to  nature's  laws. 

Miss  Burney,  blushing  in  the  royal  box,  had 
the  satisfaction  of  hearing  this  stately  adver 
tisement  of  her  wares.  Virtue  was  not  left  to 
be  its  own  reward  in  those  fruitful  and  gener 
ous  years. 

Indeed,  the  most  comfortable  characteristic 
of  the  period,  and  the  one  which  incites  our 
deepest  envy,  is  the  universal  willingness  to 
accept  a  good  purpose  as  a  substitute  for  good 
work.  Even  Madame  d'Arblay,  shrewd,  caus 
tic,  and  quick-witted,  forbears  from  unkind 
criticism  of  the  well-intentioned.  She  has  no 
thing  but  praise  for  Mrs.  Barbauld's  poems,  be 
cause  of  "  the  piety  and  worth  they  exhibit "  ; 
and  she  rises  to  absolute  enthusiasm  over  the 


A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY  5 

antislavery  epistle,  declaring  that  its  energy 
"  springs  from  the  real  spirit  of  virtue."  Yet 
to  us  the  picture  of  the  depraved  and  luxuri 
ous  West  Indian  ladies  —  about  whom  it  is 
safe  to  say  good  Mrs.  Barbauld  knew  very 
little  —  seems  one  of  the  most  unconsciously 
humorous  things  in  English  verse. 

Lo !  where  reclined,  pale  Beauty  courts  the  breeze, 
Diffused  on  sofas  of  voluptuous  ease. 

With  languid  tones  imperious  mandates  urge, 
With  arm  recumbent  wield  the  household  scourge. 

There  are  moments  when  Mrs.  Barbauld  soars 
to  the  inimitable,  when  she  reaches  the  highest 
and  happiest  effect  that  absurdity  is  able  to 
produce. 

With  arm  recumbent  wield  the  household  scourge 

is  one  of  these  inspirations ;  and  another  is  this 
pregnant  sentence,  which  occurs  in  a  chapter 
of  advice  to  young  girls :  "  An  ass  is  much 
better  adapted  than  a  horse  to  show  off  a 
lady." 

To  point  to  Hannah  More  as  a  brilliant  and 
bewildering  example  of  sustained  success  is  to 
give  the  most  convincing  proof  that  it  was  a 


6  A   HAPPY   HALF-CENTURY 

good  thing  to  be  born  in  the  year  1745.  Miss 
More's  reputation  was  already  established  at 
the  dawning  of  my  cherished  half-century,  and, 
for  the  whole  fifty  years,  her  life  was  a  series 
of  social,  literary,  and  religious  triumphs.  In 
her  youth,  she  was  mistaken  for  a  wit.  In  her 
old  age,  she  was  revered  as  a  saint.  In  her 
youth,  Garrick  called  her  "  Nine," —  gracefully 
intimating  that  she  embodied  the  attributes  of 
all  the  Muses.  In  her  old  age,  an  acquaintance 
wrote  to  her:  "  You  who  are  secure  of  the 
approbation  of  angels  may  well  hold  human 
applause  to  be  of  small  consequence."  In  her 
youth,  she  wrote  a  play  that  everybody  went 
to  see.  In  her  old  age,  she  wrote  tracts  that 
everybody  bought  and  distributed.  Prelates 
composed  Latin  verses  in  her  honour ;  and 
when  her  "  Estimate  of  the  Religion  of  the 
Fashionable  World "  was  published  anony 
mously,  the  Bishop  of  London  exclaimed  in 
a  kind  of  pious  transport,  "Aut  Morus,  aut 
Angelus!  "  Her  tragedy,  "  Percy,"  melted  the 
.  heart  of  London.  Men  "  shed  tears  in  abun 
dance,"  and  women  were  "  choked  with  emotion  " 
over  the  "affecting  circumstances  of  the  Piece." 


A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY  7 

Sir  William  Pepys  confessed  that  "Percy" 
"  broke  his  heart "  ;  and  that  he  thought  it  "  a 
kind  of  profanation  "  to  wipe  his  eyes,  and  go 
from  the  theatre  to  Lady  Harcourt's  assembly. 
Four  thousand  copies  of  the  play  were  sold  in 
a  fortnight ;  and  the  Duke  of  Northumberland 
sent  a  special  messenger  to  Miss  More  to 
thank  her  for  the  honour  she  had  done  his 
historic  name. 

As  a  novelist,  Hannah  was  equally  success 
ful.  Twenty  thousand  copies  of  "  Coelebs  in 
Search  of  a  Wife  "  were  sold  in  England,  and 
thirty  thousand  in  America.  "  The  Americans 
are  a  very  approving  people,"  acknowledged 
the  gratified  authoress.  In  Iceland  "  Coelebs  " 
was  read  —  so  Miss  More  says  —  "  with  great 
apparent  profit " ;  while  certain  very  popular 
tracts,  like  "  Charles  the  Footman  "  and  "  The 
Shepherd  of  Salisbury  Plain,"  made  their  edi 
fying  way  to  Moscow,  and  were  found  by  the 
missionary  Gericke  in  the  library  of  the  Rajah 
of  Tanjore.  "  All  this  and  Heaven,  too !  "  as  a 
reward  for  being  born  in  1745.  The  injustice 
of  the  thing  stings  us  to  the  soul.  Yet  it  was 
the  unhesitating  assumption  of  Heaven's  co- 


8  A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY 

partnership  which  gave  to  Hannah  More  the 
best  part  of  her  earthly  prestige,  and  made  her 
verdicts  a  little  like  Protestant  Bulls.  When 
she  objected  to  "  Marmion  "  and  "  The  Lady 
of  the  Lake  "  for  their  lack  of  "  practical  pre 
cept,"  these  sinless  poems  were  withdrawn  from 
Evangelical  bookshelves.  Her  biographer,  Mr. 
Thompson,  thought  it  necessary  to  apologize 
for  her  correspondence  with  that  agreeable 
worldling,  Horace  Walpole,  and  to  assure  us 
that  "  the  fascinations  of  Walpole's  false  wit 
must  have  retired  before  the  bright  ascendant 
of  her  pure  and  prevailing  superiority."  As 
she  waxed  old,  and  affluent,  and  disputatious, 
it  was  deemed  well  to  encourage  a  timid  pub 
lic  with  the  reminder  that  her  genius,  though 
"great  and  commanding,"  was  still  "  lovely  and 
kind."  And  when  she  died,  it  was  recorded 
that  '.'  a  cultivated  taste  for  moral  scenery  was 
one  of  her  distinctions  "  ;  —  as  though  Nature 
herself  attended  a  class  of  ethics  before  ven 
turing  to  allure  too  freely  the  mistress  of  Bar 
ley  Wood. 

It  is  in  the  contemplation  of  such  sunlight 
mediocrity  that  the  hardship  of  being  born  too 


A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY  9 

late  is  felt  with  crushing  force.  Why  cannot 
we  write  "  Letters  on  the  Improvement  of  the 
Mind,"  and  be  held,  like  Mrs.  Chapone,  to  be 
an  authority  on  education  all  the  rest  of  our 
lives ;  and  have  people  entreating  us,  as  they 
entreated  her,  to  undertake,  at  any  cost,  the 
intellectual  guidance  of  their  daughters  ?  When 
we  consider  all  that  a  modern  educator  is 
expected  to  know  —  from  bird-calls  to  metric 
measures  —  we  sigh  over  the  days  which  de 
manded  nothing  more  difficult  than  the  polite 
expression  of  truisms. 

"  Our  feelings  are  not  given  us  for  our  orna 
ment,  but  to  spur  us  on  to  right  action.  Com 
passion,  for  instance,  is  not  impressed  upon  the 
human  heart,  only  to  adorn  the  fair  face  with 
tears,  and  to  give  an  agreeable  languor  to  the 
eyes.  It  is  designed  to  excite  our  utmost  en 
deavour  to  relieve  the  sufferer." 

Was  it  really  worth  while  to  say  this  even 
in  1775  ?  Is  it  possible  that  young  ladies  were 
then  in  danger  of  thinking  that  the  office  of 
compassion  was  to  "  adorn  a  face  with  tears  "? 
and  did  they  try  to  be  sorry  for  the  poor  and 
sick,  only  that  their  bright  eyes  might  be  soft- 


10  A   HAPPY   HALF-CENTURY 

ened  into  languor?  Yet  we  know  that  Mrs. 
Chapone's  little  volume  was  held  to  have  ren 
dered  signal  service  to  society.  It  has  the  hon 
our  to  be  one  of  the  books  which  Miss  Lydia 
Languish  lays  out  ostentatiously  on  her  table 
• —  in  company  with  Fordyce's  sermons — when 
she  anticipates  a  visit  from  Mrs.  Malaprop 
and  Sir  Anthony.  Some  halting  verses  of  the 
period  exalt  it  as  the  beacon  light  of  youth ; 
and  Mrs.  Delany,  writing  to  her  six-year-old 
niece,  counsels  the  little  girl  to  read  the 
44  Letters  "  once  a  year  until  she  is  grown  up. 
44  They  speak  to  the  heart  as  well  as  to  the 
head,"  she  assures  the  poor  infant;  44and  I 
know  no  book  (next  to  the  Bible)  more  enter 
taining  and  edifying." 

Mrs.  Montagu  gave  dinners.  The  real  and 
very  solid  foundation  of  her  reputation  was  the 
admirable  manner  in  which  she  fed  her  lions. 
A  mysterious  halo  of  intellectuality  surrounded 
this  excellent  hostess.  44  The  female  Maecenas 
of  Hill  Street,"  Hannah  More  elegantly  termed 
her,  adding,  —  to  prove  that  she  herself  was 
not  unduly  influenced  by  gross  food  and  drink, 
— 44  But  what  are  baubles,  when  speaking  of 


A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY  11 

a  Montagu ! "  Dr.  Johnson  praised  her  con 
versation,  —  especially  when  he  wanted  to  tease 
jealous  Mrs.  Thrale,  —  but  sternly  discounte 
nanced  her  attempts  at  authorship.  When  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  observed  that  the  "Essay  on 
the  Writings  and  Genius  of  Shakespeare  "  did 
its  authoress  honour,  Dr.  Johnson  retorted 
contemptuously:  "It  does  her  honour,  but  it 
would  do  honour  to  nobody  else," — which 
strikes  me  as  a  singularly  unpleasant  thing  to 
hear  said  about  one's  literary  masterpiece. 
Like  the  fabled  Caliph  who  stoopl  by  the  Sul 
tan's  throne,  translating  the  flowers  of  Per 
sian  speech  into  comprehensible  and  unflatter 
ing  truths,  so  Dr.  Johnson  stands  undeceived 
in  this  pleasant  half -century  of  pretence,  trans 
lating  its  ornate  nonsense  into  language  we 
can  too  readily  understand. 

But  how  comfortable  and  how  comforting 
the  pretence  must  have  been,  and  how  kindly 
tolerant  all  the  pretenders  were  to  one  another ! 
If,  in  those  happy  days,  you  wrote  an  essay  on 
"  The  Harmony  of  Numbers  and  Versifica 
tion,"  you  unhesitatingly  asked  your  friends  to 
come  and  have  it  read  aloud  to  them ;  and  your 


12  A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY 

friends  —  instead  of  leaving  town  next  day  — 
came,  and  listened,  and  called  it  a  "  Miltonic 
evening."  If,  like  Mrs.  Montagu,  you  had  a 
taste  for  letter-writing,  you  filled  up  innumer 
able  sheets  with  such  breathless  egotisms  as 
this:- 

"  I  come,  a  happy  guest,  to  the  general  feast 
Nature  spreads  for  all  her  children,  my  spirits 
dance  in  the  sunbeams,  or  take  a  sweet  repose 
in  the  shade.  I  rejoice  in  the  grand  chorus  of 
the  day,  and  feel  content  in  the  silent  serene 
of  night,  while  I  listen  to  the  morning  hymn 
of  the  whole  animal  creation,  I  recollect  how 
beautiful  it  is,  sum'd  up  in  the  works  of  our 
great  poet,  Milton,  every  rivulet  murmurs  in 
poetical  cadence,  and  to  the  melody  of  the 
nightingale  I  add  the  harmonious  verses  she 
has  inspired  in  many  languages." 

So  highly  were  these  rhapsodies  appreciated, 
and  so  far  were  correspondents  from  demand 
ing  either  coherence  or  punctuation,  that  four 
volumes  of  Mrs.  Montagu's  letters  were  pub 
lished  after  her  death  ;  and  we  find  Miss  More 
praising  Mrs.  Boscawen  because  she  approached 
this  standard  of  excellence :  "  Mrs.  Talk  tells 


A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY  13 

me  her  letters  are  hardly  inferior  to  Mrs.  Mon 


tagu  s. 


Those  were  the  days  to  live  in,  and  sensi 
ble  people  made  haste  to  be  born  in  time.  The 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century  saw  quiet 
country  families  tearing  the  freshly  published 
"  Mysteries  of  Udolpho  "  into  a  dozen  parts, 
because  no  one  could  wait  his  turn  to  read  the 
book.  All  England  held  its  breath  while  Emily 
explored  the  haunted  chambers  of  her  prison- 
house.  The  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury  found  Mrs.  Opie  enthroned  as  a  peerless 
novel-writer,  and  the  "  Edinburgh  Review " 
praising  "  Adeline  Mowbray,  or  Mother  and 
Daughter,"  as  the  most  pathetic  story  in  the 
English  language.  Indeed,  one  sensitive  gen 
tleman  wrote  to  its  authoress  that  he  had  lain 
awake  all  night,  bathed  in  tears,  after  reading 
it.  About  this  time,  too,  we  begin  to  hear  "  the 
mellow  tones  of  Felicia  Hemans,"  whom  Chris 
topher  North  reverently  admired ;  and  who,  we 
are  assured,  found  her  way  to  all  hearts  that 
were  open  to  "  the  holy  sympathies  of  religion 
and  virtue."  Murray's  heart  was  so  open  that 
he  paid  two  hundred  guineas  for  the  "  Vespers 


14  A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY 

of  Palermo  "  ;  and  Miss  Edgeworth  considered 
that  the  "  Siege  of  Valencia "  contained  the 
most  beautiful  poetry  she  had  read  for  years. 
Finally  Miss  Jane  Porter  looms  darkly  on  the 
horizon,  with  novels  five  volumes  long.  All 
the  Porters  worked  on  a  heroic  scale.  Anna 
Maria's  stories  were  more  interminable  than 
Jane's ;  and  their  brother  Robert  painted  on  a 
single  canvas,  "  The  Storming  of  Seringapa- 
tam,"  seven  hundred  life-sized  figures.  ^ 

"  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw  "  and  "  The  Scottish 
Chiefs "  were  books  familiar  to  our  infancy. 
They  stretched  vastly  and  vaguely  over  many 
tender  years,  —  stories  after  the  order  of  Mel- 
chisedec,  without  beginning  and  without  end. 
But  when  our  grandmothers  were  young,  and 
my  chosen  period  had  still  years  to  run,  they 
were  read  on  two  continents,  and  in  many 
tongues.  The  King  of  Wiirtemberg  was  so 
pleased  with  "  Thaddeus  "  that  he  made  Miss 
Porter  a  "  lady  of  the  Chapter  of  St.  Joachim," 
—  which  sounds  both  imposing  and  mysterious. 
The  badge  of  the  order  was  a  gold  cross ;  and 
this  unusual  decoration,  coupled  with  the  lady's 
habit  of  draping  herself  in  flowing  veils  like 


A  HAPPY  HALF-CENTURY  15 

one  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  heroines,  so  confused 
an  honest  British  public  that  it  was  deemed 
necessary  to  explain  to  agitated  Protestants 
that  Miss  Porter  had  no  Popish  proclivities, 
and  must  not  be  mistaken  for  a  nun.  In  our 
own  country  her  novels  were  exceedingly  popu 
lar,  and  her  American  admirers  sent  her  a  rose 
wood  armchair  in  token  of  appreciation  and 
esteem.  It  is  possible  she  would  have  preferred 
a  royalty  on  her  books ;  but  the  armchair  was 
graciously  accepted,  and  a  pen-and-ink  sketch 
in  an  album  of  celebrities  represents  Miss  Por 
ter  seated  majestically  on  its  cushions,  "  in  the 
quiet  and  ladylike  occupation  of  taking  a  cup 
of  coffee." 

And  so  my  happy  half-century  draws  to  its 
appointed  end.  A  new  era,  cold,  critical,  con 
tentious,  deprecated  the  old  genial  absurdities, 
chilled  the  old  sentimental  outpourings,  ques 
tioned  the  old  profitable  pietism.  Unfortunates, 
born  a  hundred  years  too  late,  look  back  with 
wistful  eyes  upon  the  golden  age  which  they 
feel  themselves  qualified  to  adorn. 


THE   PERILS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

Peu  de  g^nie,  point  de  grace. 

THERE  is  no  harder  fate  than  to  be  immortal 
ized  as  a  fool ;  to  have  one's  name  —  which  mer 
its  nothing  sterner  than  obliteration  —  handed 
down  to  generations  as  an  example  of  silliness, 
or  stupidity,  or  presumption;  to  be  enshrined 
pitilessly  in  the  amber  of  the  "  Dunciad  " ;  to  be 
laughed  at  forever  because  of  Charles  Lamb's 
impatient  and  inextinguishable  raillery.  When 
an  industrious  young  authoress  named  Elizabeth 
Ogilvy  Benger  —  a  model  of  painstaking  insig 
nificance  —  invited  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb  to 
drink  tea  with  her  one  cold  December  night,  she 
little  dreamed  she  was  achieving  a  deathless  and 
unenviable  fame ;  and  that,  when  her  half  dozen 
books  should  have  lapsed  into  comfortable  obliv 
ion,  she  herself  should  never  be  fortunate  enough 
to  be  forgotten.  It  is  a  cruel  chance  which  crys 
tallizes  the  folly  of  an  hour,  and  makes  it  out 
live  our  most  serious  endeavours.  Perhaps  we 
should  do  well  to  consider  this  painful  possi- 


THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY        17 

bility  before  hazarding  an  acquaintance  with 
the  Immortals. 

Miss  Benger  did  more  than  hazard.  She 
pursued  the  Immortals  with  insensate  zeal.  She 
bribed  Mrs.  Inchbald's  servant-maid  into  lend 
ing  her  cap,  and  apron,  and  tea-tray ;  and,  so 
equipped,  penetrated  into  the  inmost  sanctuary 
of  that  literary  lady,  who  seems  to  have  taken 
the  intrusion  in  good  part.  She  was  equally 
adroit  in  seducing  Mary  Lamb — as  the  Serpent 
seduced  Eve  —  when  Charles  Lamb  was  the 
ultimate  object  of  her  designs.  Coming  home 
to  dinner  one  day,  "  hungry  as  a  hunter,"  he 
found  to  his  dismay  the  two  women  closeted 
together,  and  trusted  he  was  in  time  to  prevent 
their  exchanging  vows  of  eternal  friendship, 
though  not  —  as  he  discovered  later  —  in  time 
to  save  himself  from  an  engagement  to  drink 
tea  with  the  stranger  ("  I  had  never  seen  her 
before,  and  could  not  tell  who  the  devil  it  was 
that  was  so  familiar"),  the  following  night. 

What  happened  is  told  in  a  letter  to  Cole 
ridge  ;  one  of  the  best-known  and  one  of  the  long 
est  letters  Lamb  ever  wrote,  —  he  is  so  brimful 
of  his  grievance.  Miss  Benger's  lodgings  were 


18         THE   PERILS   OF  IMMORTALITY 

up  two  flights  of  s  tairs  in  East  Street.  She  enter 
tained  her  guests  with  tea,  coffee,  macaroons, 
and  "  much  love."  She  talked  to  them,  or  rather 
at  them,  upon  purely  literary  topics,  —  as,  for 
example,  Miss  Hannah  More's  "  Strictures  on 
Female  Education,"  which  they  had  never  read. 
She  addressed  Mary  Lamb  in  French,  —  "  pos 
sibly  having  heard  that  neither  Mary  nor  I 
understood  French,"  —  and  she  favoured  them 
with  Miss  Seward's  opinion  of  Pope.  She 
asked  Lamb,  who  was  growing  more  miserable 
every  minute,  if  he  agreed  with  D'Israeli  as  to  the 
influence  of  organism  upon  intellect ;  and  when 
he  tried  to  parry  the  question  with  a  pun  upon 
organ  —  "  which  went  off  very  flat "  —  she  de 
spised  him  for  his  feeble  flippancy.  She  advised 
Mary  to  carry  home  two  translations  of  "  Pi- 
zarro,"  so  that  she  might  compare  them  verba 
tim  (an  offer  hastily  declined),  and  she  made 
them  both  promise  to  return  the  following  week 
—  which  they  never  did  —  to  meet  Miss  Jane 
Porter  and  her  sister,  "  who,  it  seems,  have 
heard  much  of  Mr.  Coleridge,  and  wish  to  meet 
us  because  we  are  his  friends."  It  is  a  comedie 
larmoyante.  We  sympathize  hotly  with  Lamb 


THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY        19 

when  we  read  his  letter  ;  but  there  is  something 
piteous  in  the  thought  of  the  poor  little  hostess 
going  complacently  to  bed  that  night,  and  never 
realizing  that  she  had  made  her  one  unhappy 
flight  to  fame. 

There  were  people,  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
who  liked  Miss  Benger's  evenings.  Miss  Aikin 
assures  us  that  "  her  circle  of  acquaintances 
extended  with  her  reputation,  and  with  the 
knowledge  of  her  excellent  qualities,  and  she 
was  often  enabled  to  assemble  as  guests  at  her 
humble  tea-table  names  whose  celebrity  would 
have  insured  attention  in  the  proudest  salons 
of  the  metropolis."  Crabb  Robinson,  who  was 
a  frequent  visitor,  used  to  encounter  large 
parties  of  sentimental  ladies ;  among  them,  Miss 
Porter,  Miss  Landon,  and  the  "  eccentric  but 
amiable"  Miss  Wesley, — John  Wesley's  niece, 
—who  prided  herself  upon  being  broad-minded 
enough  to  have  friends  of  varying  religions, 
and  who,  having  written  two  unread  novels,  re 
marked  complacently  to  Miss  Edgeworth :  "  We 
sisters  of  the  quill  ought  to  know  one  another." 

The  formidable  Lady  de  Crespigny  of  Cam 
pion  Lodge  was  also  Miss  Benger's  condescend- 


20        THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

ing  friend  and  patroness,  and  this  august  ma 
tron  —  of  insipid  mind  and  imperious  temper— 
was  held  to  sanctify  in  some  mysterious  man 
ner  all  whom  she  honoured  with  her  notice. 
The  praises  lavished  upon  Lady  de  Crespigny 
by  her  contemporaries  would  have  made  Hy- 
patia  blush,  and  Sappho  hang  her  head.  Like 
Mrs.  Jarley,  she  was  the  delight  of  the  nobility 
and  gentry.  She  corresponded,  so  we  are  told, 
with  the  literati  of  England ;  she  published, 
like  a  British  Cornelia,  her  letters  of  counsel 
to  her  son ;  she  was  "  courted  by  the  gay  and 
admired  by  the  clever  " ;  and  she  mingled  at 
Campion  Lodge  "  the  festivity  of  fashionable 
parties  with  the  pleasures  of  intellectual  soci 
ety,  and  the  comforts  of  domestic  peace." 

To  this  array  of  feminine  virtue  and  femi 
nine  authorship,  Lamb  was  singularly  unre 
sponsive.  He  was  not  one  of  the  literati  hon 
oured  by  Lady  de  Crespigny's  correspondence. 
He  eluded  the  society  of  Miss  Porter,  though 
she  was  held  to  be  handsome, —  for  a  novelist. 
("  The  only  literary  lady  I  ever  knew,"  writes 
Miss  Mitford,  "  who  did  n't  look  like  a  scare 
crow  to  keep  birds  from  cherries.")  He  said 


THE   PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY        21 

unkindly  of  Miss  Landon  that,  if  she  belonged 
to  him,  he  would  lock  her  up  and  feed  her  on 
bread  and  water  until  she  left  off  writing  poe 
try.  And  for  Miss  Wesley  he  entertained  a 
cordial  animosity,  only  one  degree  less  lively 
than  his  sentiments  towards  Miss  Benger. 
Miss  Wesley  had  a  lamentable  habit  of  send 
ing  her  effusions  to  be  read  by  reluctant  men 
of  letters.  She  asked  Lamb  for  Coleridge's  ad 
dress,  which  he,  to  divert  the  evil  from  his  own 
head,  cheerfully  gave.  Coleridge,  very  angry, 
reproached  his  friend  for  this  disloyal  base 
ness  ;  but  Lamb,  with  the  desperate  instinct  of 
self-preservation,  refused  all  promise  of  amend 
ment.  "  You  encouraged  that  mopsey,  Miss 
Wesley,  to  dance  after  you,"  he  wrote  tartly, 
"  in  the  hope  of  having  her  nonsense  put  into 
a  nonsensical  Anthology.  We  have  pretty  well 
shaken  her  off  by  that  simple  expedient  of 
referring  her  to  you ;  but  there  are  more  burs 
in  the  wind."  ..."  Of  all  God's  creatures'," 
he  cries  again,  in  an  excess  of  ill-humour,  "  I 
detest  letters-affecting,  authors-hunting  ladies." 
Alas  for  Miss  Benger  when  she  hunted  hard, 
and  the  quarry  turned  at  bay ! 


22        THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

An  atmosphere  of  inexpressible  dreariness 
hangs  over  the  little  coterie  of  respectable,  un- 
illuininated  writers,  who,  to  use  Lamb's  price 
less  phrase,  encouraged  one  another  in  medioc 
rity.  A  vapid  propriety,  a  mawkish  sensibilit^ 
were  their  substitutes  for  real  distinction  of 
character  or  mind.  They  read  Mary  Wollstone- 
craft's  books,  but  would  not  know  the  author ; 
and  when,  years  later,  Mrs.  Gaskell  presented 
the  widowed  Mrs.  Shelley  to  Miss  Lucy  Aikin, 
that  outraged  spinster  turned  her  back  upon 
the  erring  one,  to  the  profound  embarrassment 
of  her  hostess.  Of  Mrs.  Inchbald,  we  read  in 
"Public  Characters "  for  1811:  "Her  moral 
qualities  constitute  her  principal  excellence; 
and  though  useful  talents  and  personal  accom 
plishments,  of  themselves,  form  materials  for 
an  agreeable  picture,  moral  character  gives  the 
polish  which  fascinates  the  heart."  The  con 
ception  of  goodness  then  in  vogue  is  pleasingly 
illustrated  by  a  passage  from  one  of  Miss 
Elizabeth  Hamilton's  books,  which  Miss  Ben- 
ger  in  her  biography  of  that  lady  (now  lost  to 
fame)  quotes  appreciatively :  — 

"  It  was  past  twelve  o'clock.    Already  had 


THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY        23 

the  active  and  judicious  Harriet  performed 
every  domestic  task ;  and,  having  completely 
regulated  the  family  economy  for  the  day,  was 
quietly  seated  at  work  with  her  aunt  and  sister, 
listening  to  Hume's  '  History  of  England,'  as 
it  was  read  to  her  by  some  orphan  girl  whom 
she  had  herself  instructed." 

So  truly  ladylike  had  the  feminine  mind 
grown  by  this  time,  that  the  very  language  it 
used  was  refined  to  the  point  of  ambiguity. 
Mrs.  Barbauld  writes  genteelly  of  the  behav 
iour  of  young  girls  "  to  the  other  half  of  their 
species,"  as  though  she  could  not  bear  to  say, 
simply  and  coarsely,  men.  So  full  of  content 
were  the  little  circles  who  listened  to  the  "  ele 
gant  lyric  poetess,"  Mrs.  Hemans,  or  to  "  the 
female  Shakespeare  of  her  age,"  Miss  Joanna 
Baillie  (we  owe  both  these  phrases  to  the  poet 
Campbell),  that  when  Crabb  Robinson  was 
asked  by  Miss  Wakefield  whether  he  would 
like  to  know  Mrs.  Barbauld,  he  cried  enthusi 
astically  :  "  You  might  as  well  ask  me  whether 
I  should  like  to  know  the  Angel  Gabriel !  " 

In  the  midst  of  these  sentimentalities  and  rap 
tures,  we  catch  now  and  then  forlorn  glimpses 


24         THE   PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

of  the  Immortals,  —  of  Wordsworth  at  a  liter 
ary  entertainment  in  the  house  of  Mr.  Hoare  of 
Hampstead,  sitting  mute  and  miserable  all  the 
evening  in  a  corner,  —  which,  as  Miss  Aikin 
truly  remarked,  was  "  disappointing  and  pro 
voking  "  ;  of  Lamb  carried  by  the  indefati 
gable  Crabb  Robinson  to  call  on  Mrs.  Barbauld. 
This  visit  appears  to  have  been  a  distinct  fail 
ure.  Lamb's  one  recorded  observation  was  that 
Gilbert  "VVakefield  had  a  peevish  face,  —  an 
awkward  remark,  as  Wakefield's  daughter  sat 
close  at  hand  and  listening.  "  Lamb,"  writes 
Mr.  Robinson,  "  was  vexed,  but  got  out  of  the 
scrape  tolerably  well,"  -  having  had,  indeed, 
plenty  of  former  experiences  to  help  him  on 
the  way. 

There  is  a  delightful  passage  in  Miss  Jane 
Porter's  diary  which  describes  at  length  an 
evening  spent  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Fenwick, 
"  the  amiable  authoress  of  '  Secrecy.' "  (Every 
body  was  the  amiable  authoress  of  something. 
It  was  a  day,  like  our  own,  given  over  to  the 
worship  of  ink.)  The  company  consisted  of 
Miss  Porter  and  her  sister  Maria,  Miss  Benger 
and  her  brother,  the  poet  Campbell,  and  his 


THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY        25 

nephew,  a  young  man  barely  twenty  years  of 
age.  The  lion  of  the  little  party  was  of  course 
the  poet,  who  endeared  himself  to  Mrs.  Fen- 
wick's  heart  by  his  attentions  to  her  son,  "  a 
beautiful  boy  of  six." 

"  This  child's  innocence  and  caresses,"  writes 
Miss  Porter  gushingly,  "  seemed  to  unbend  the 
lovely  feelings  of  Campbell's  heart.  Every  re 
straint  but  those  which  the  guardian  angels  of 
tender  infancy  acknowledge  was  thrown  aside. 
I  never  saw  Man  in  a  more  interesting  point 
of  view.  I  felt  how  much  I  esteemed  the  author 
of  the  4  Pleasures  of  Hope.'  When  we  returned 
home,  we  walked.  It  was  a  charming  summer 
night.  The  moon  shone  brightly.  Maria  leaned 
on  Campbell's  arm.  I  did  the  same  by  Benger's. 
Campbell  made  some  observations  on  pedantic 
women.  I  did  not  like  it,  being  anxious  for 
the  respect  of  this  man.  I  was  jealous  about 
how  nearly  he  might  think  we  resembled  that 
character.  When  the  Bengers  parted  from  us, 
Campbell  observed  my  abstraction,  and  with 
sincerity  I  confessed  the  cause.  I  know  not 
what  were  his  replies ;  but  they  were  so  grati 
fying,  so  endearing,  so  marked  with  truth,  that 


26        THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

when  we  arrived  at  the  door,  and  he  shook  us 
by  the  hand,  as  a  sign  of  adieu  immediately 
prior  to  his  next  day's  journey  to  Scotland, 
we  parted  with  evident  marks  of  being  all  in 
tears." 

It  is  rather  disappointing,  after  this  outburst 
of  emotion,  to  find  Campbell,  in  a  letter  to 
his  sister,  describing  Miss  Porter  in  language 
of  chilling  moderation :  "  Among  the  company 
was  Miss  Jane  Porter,  whose  talents  my  ?icphew 
adores.  She  is  a  pleasing  woman,  and  made 
quite  a  conquest  of  him." 

Miss  Benger  was  only  one  of  the  many 
aspirants  to  literary  honours  whose  futile  en 
deavours  vexed  and  affronted  Charles  Lamb. 
In  reality  she  burdened  him  far  less  than 
others  who,  like  Miss  Betham  and  Miss  Stod- 
dart,  succeeded  in  sending  him  their  verses  for 
criticism,  or  who  begged  him  to  forward  the 
effusions  to  Southey,  —  an  office  he  gladly  ful 
filled.  Perhaps  Miss  Benger's  vivacity  jarred 
upon  his  taste,  lie  was  fastidious  about  the 
gayety  of  women.  Madame  de  Stael  considered 
her  one  of  the  most  interesting  persons  she 
had  met  in  England;  but  the  approval  of  this 


THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY        27 

"  impudent  clever  "  Frencliwoman  would  have 
been  the  least  possible  recommendation  to 
Lamb.  If  he  had  known  how  hard  had  been 
Miss  Benger's  struggles,  and  how  scanty  her 
rewards,  he  might  have  forgiven  her  that  sad 
perversity  which  kept  her  toiling  in  the  field 
of  letters.  She  had  had  the  misfortune  to  be  a 
precocious  child,  and  had  written  at  the  age 
of  thirteen  a  poem  called  "  The  Female  Ge- 
niad,"  which  was  dedicated  to  Lady  de  Cres- 
pigny,  and  published  under  the  patronage  of 
that  honoured  dame.  Youthful  prodigies  were 
then  much  in  favour.  Miss  Mitford  comments 
very  sensibly  upon  them,  being  filled  with  pity 
for  one  Mary  Anne  Browne,  "  a  fine  tall  girl 
of  fourteen,  and  a  full-fledged  authoress,"  who 
was  extravagantly  courted  and  caressed  one 
season,  and  cruelly  ignored  the  next.  The 
"  Female  Geniad  "  sealed  Miss  Benger's  fate. 
When  one  has  written  a  poem  at  thirteen, 
and  that  poem  has  been  printed  and  praised, 
there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  keep  on  writ 
ing  until  Death  mercifully  removes  the  obli 
gation. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  drama  —  which 


28        THE   PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

then,  as  now,  was  the  goal  of  every  author's 
ambition  —  first  fired  Miss  Benger's  zeal. 
When  we  think  of  Miss  Hannah  More  as  a 
successful  playwright,  it  is  hard  to  understand 
how  any  one  could  fail ;  yet  fail  Miss  Benger 
did,  although  we  are  assured  by  her  biographer 
that  "  her  genius  appeared  in  many  ways  well 
adapted  to  the  stage."  She  next  wrote  a  merci 
lessly  long  poem  upon  the  abolition  of  the  slave 
trade  (which  was  read  only  by  anti-slavery  agi 
tators),  and  two  novels,  —  "  Marian,"  and 
"  Valsinore :  or,  the  Heart  and  the  Fancy." 
Of  these  we  are  told  that  "  their  excellences 
were  such  as  genius  only  can  reach  " ;  and  if 
they  also  missed  their  mark,  it  must  have  been 
because  —  as  Miss  Aikin  delicately  insinuates 
—  "  no  judicious  reader  could  fail  to  perceive 
that  the  artist  was  superior  to  the  work."  This 
is  always  unfortunate.  It  is  the  work,  and  not 
the  artist,  which  is  offered  for  sale  in  the  market 
place.  Miss  Benger's  work  is  not  much  worse 
than  a  great  deal  which  did  sell,  and  she  pos 
sessed  at  least  the  grace  of  an  unflinching  and 
courageous  perseverance.  Deliberately,  and 
without  aptitude  or  training,  she  began  to  write 


THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY        29 

history,  and  in  this  most  difficult  of  all  fields 
won  for  herself  a  hearing.  Her  "  Life  of  Anne 
Boleyn,"  and  her  "  Memoirs  of  Mary,  Queen 
of  Scots,"  were  read  in  many  an  English  school 
room  ;  their  propriety  and  Protestantism  making 
them  acceptable  to  the  anxious  parental  mind. 
A  single  sentence  from  "  Anne  Boleyn  "  will 
suffice  to  show  the  ease  of  Miss  Benger's  men 
tal  attitude,  and  the  comfortable  nature  of  her 
views :  — 

"  It  would  be  ungrateful  to  forget  that  the 
mother  of  Queen  Elizabeth  was  the  early  and 
zealous  advocate  of  the  Reformation,  and  that, 
by  her  efforts  to  dispel  the  gloom  of  ignorance 
and  superstition,  she  conferred  on  the  English 
people  a  benefit  of  which,  in  the  present  ad 
vanced  state  of  knowledge  and  civilization,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  conceive  or  to  appreciate 
the  real  value  and  importance." 

The  "  active  and  judicious  Harriet  "  would 
have  listened  to  this  with  as  much  complacence 
as  to  Hume. 

In  «  La  Belle  Assembled  "  for  April,  1823, 
there  is  an  engraving  of  Miss  Smirke's  por 
trait  of  Miss  Benger.  She  is  painted  in  an  im- 


30        THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

posing  turban,  with  tight  little  curls,  and  an 
air  of  formidable  sprightliness.  It  was  this 
sprightliness  which  was  so  much  admired. 
""Wound  up  by  a  cup  of  coffee,"  she  would 
talk  for  hours,  and  her  friends  really  seem  to 
have  liked  it.  "  Her  lively  imagination,"  writes 
Miss  Aikin,  "  and  the  flow  of  eloquence  it  in 
spired,  aided  by  one  of  the  most  melodious  of 
voices,  lent  an  inexpressible  charm  to  her  con 
versation,  which  was  heightened  by  an  intuitive 
discernment  of  character,  rare  in  itself,  and 
still  more  so  in  combination  with  such  fertility 
of  fancy  and  ardency  of  feeling." 

This  leaves  little  to  be  desired.  It  is  not  at 
all  like  the  Miss  Benger  of  Lamb's  letter,  with 
her  vapid  pretensions  and  her  stupid  insolence. 
Unhappily,  we  see  through  Lamb's  eyes,  and 
we  cannot  see  through  Miss  Aikin's.  Of  one 
thing  only  I  feel  sure.  Had  Miss  Benger, 
instead  of  airing  her  trivial  acquirements,  told 
Lamb  that  when  she  was  a  little  girl,  bookless 
and  penniless,  at  Chatham,  she  used  to  read 
the  open  volumes  in  the  booksellers'  windows, 
and  go  back  again  and  again,  hoping  that  the 
leaves  might  be  turned,  she  would  have  touched 


THE  PERILS  OF  IMMORTALITY        31 

a  responsive  chord  in  his  heart.  Who  does  not 
remember  his  exquisite  sympathy  for  "  street- 
readers,"  and  his  unlikely  story  of  Martin 

B ,   who  "  got    through    two  volumes  of 

4  Clarissa,' "  in  this  desultory  fashion.  Had  he 
but  known  of  the  shabby,  eager  child,  staring 
wistfully  at  the  coveted  books,  he  would  never 
have  written  the  most  amusing  of  his  letters, 
and  Miss  Benger's  name  would  be  to-day  un 
known. 


WHEN   LALLA  ROOKH   WAS   YOUNG 

And  give  you,  mixed  with  western  sentimentalism, 
Some  glimpses  of  the  finest  orientalism. 

"  STICK  to  the  East,"  wrote  Byron  to  Moore,  in 
1813.  "The  oracle,  Stael,  told  me  it  was  the 
only  poetic  policy.  The  North,  South,  and  West 
have  all  been  exhausted  ;  but  from  the  East  we 
have  nothing  but  Southey's  unsaleables,  and 
these  he  has  contrived  to  spoil  by  adopting  only 
their  most  outrageous  fictions.  His  personages 
don't  interest  us,  and  yours  will.  You  will  have 
no  competitors ;  and,  if  you  had,  you  ought  to 
be  glad  of  it.  The  little  I  have  done  in  that 
way  is  merely  a  4  voice  in  the  wilderness '  for 
you ;  and  if  it  has  had  any  success,  that  also  will 
prove  that  the  public  are  orientalizing,  and  pave 
the  way  for  you." 

There  is  something  admirably  business-like 
in  this  advice.  Byron,  who  four  months  before 
had  sold  the  "  Giaour  "  and  the  "  Bride  of  Aby- 
dos  "  to  Murray  for  a  thousand  guineas,  was 
beginning  to  realize  the  commercial  value  of 


WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG    33 

poetry ;  and,  like  a  true  rnan  of  affairs,  knew 
what  it  meant  to  corner  a  poetic  market.  He 
was  generous  enough  to  give  Moore  the  tip, 
and  to  hold  out  a  helping  hand  as  well;  for  he 
sent  him  six  volumes  of  Castellan's  "  Moeurs 
des  Ottomans,"  and  three  volumes  of  Toderini's 
"  De  la  Litterature  des  Turcs."  The  oriental 
ism  afforded  by  text-books  was  the  kind  that 
England  loved. 

From  the  publication  of  "  Lalla  Rookh  "  in 
1817  to  the  publication  of  Thackeray's  "  Our 
Street "  in  1847,  Byron's  far-sighted  policy  con 
tinued  to  bear  golden  fruit.  For  thirty  years 
Caliphs  and  Deevs,  Brahmins  and  Circassians, 
rioted  through  English  verse ;  mosques  and 
seraglios  were  the  stage  properties  of  English 
fiction;  the  bowers  of  Rochnabed,  the  Lake  of 
Cashmere,  became  as  familiar  as  Richmond  and 
the  Thames  to  English  readers.  Some  feeble 
washings  of  this  great  tidal  wave  crossed  the 
estranging  sea,  to  tint  the  pages  of  the  New 
York  "  Mirror,"  and  kindred  journals  in  the 
United  States.  Harems  and  slave-markets,  with 
beautiful  Georgians  and  sad,  slender  Arab  girls, 
thrilled  our  grandmothers'  kind  hearts.  Tales 


34    WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG 

of  Moorish  Lochinvars,  who  snatch  away  the 
fair  daughters  —  or  perhaps  the  fair  wives  — 
of  powerful  rajahs,  captivated  their  imagina 
tions.  Gazelles  trot  like  poodles  through  these 
stories,  and  lend  colour  to  their  robust  Saxon 
atmosphere.  In  one,  a  neglected  "favourite" 
wins  back  her  lord's  affection  by  the  help  of  a 
slave-giiTs  amulet ;  and  the  inconstant  Moslem, 
entering  the  harem,  exclaims,  "  Beshrew  me 
that  I  ever  thought  another  fair!"  -which 
sounds  like  a  penitent  Tudor. 

A  Persian's  Heaven  is  easily  made, 
'T  is  but  black  eyes  and  lemonade ; 

and  our  oriental  literature  was  compounded  of 
the  same  simple  ingredients.  When  the  New 
York  "  Mirror,"  under  the  guidance  of  the  ver 
satile  Mr.  Willis,  tried  to  be  impassioned  and 
sensuous,  it  dropped  into  such  wanton  lines  as 
these  to  a  "  Sultana"  :  — 

She  came,  —  soft  leaning  on  her  favourite's  arm, 
She  came,  warm  panting  from  the  sultry  hours, 
To  rove  mid  fragrant  shades  of  orange  bowers, 
A  veil  light  shadowing  each  voluptuous  charm. 

And  for  this  must  Lord  Byron  stand  respons 
ible. 


WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG    35 

The  happy  experiment  of  grafting  Turkish 
roses  upon  English  boxwood  led  up  to  some  cu 
rious  complications,  not  the  least  of  which  was 
the  necessity  of  stiffening  the  moral  fibre  of  the 
Orient  —  which  was  esteemed  to  be  but  lax  — 
until  it  could  bear  itself  in  seemly  fashion  be 
fore  English  eyes.  The  England  of  1817  was 
not,  like  the  England  of  1908,  prepared  to  give 
critical  attention  to  the  decadent.  It  presented 
a  solid  front  of  denial  to  habits  and  ideas  which 
had  not  received  the  sanction  of  British  cus 
tom  ;  which  had  not,  through  national  adoption, 
become  part  of  the  established  order  of  the  uni 
verse.  The  line  of  demarcation  between  Provi 
dence  and  the  constitution  was  lightly  drawn. 
Jeffrey,  a  self -constituted  arbiter  of  tastes  and 
morals,  assured  his  nervous  countrymen  that, 
although  Moore's  verse  was  glowing,  his  prin 
ciples  were  sound. 

"  The  characters  and  sentiments  of  *  Lalla 
Rookh '  belong  to  the  poetry  of  rational,  hon 
ourable,  considerate,  and  humane  Europe  ;  and 
not  to  the  childishness,  cruelty,  and  profligacy 
of  Asia.  So  far  as  we  have  yet  seen,  there  is 
no  sound  sense,  firmness  of  purpose,  or  princi- 


36    WHEN   LALLA  ROOKH   WAS  YOUNG 

pled   goodness,  except  among  the  natives  of 
Europe  and  their  genuine  descendants." 

Starting  with  this  magnificent  assumption, 
it  became  a  delicate  and  a  difficult  task  to  unite 
the  customs  of  the  East  with  the  "  principled 
goodness  "  of  the  West ;  the  "  sound  sense  "  of 
the  Briton  with  the  fervour  and  fanaticism  of 
the  Turk.  Jeffrey  held  that  Moore  had  effected 
this  alliance  in  the  most  tactful  manner,  and 
had  thereby  "redeemed  the  character  of  ori 
ental  poetry  " ;  just  as  Mr.  Thomas  Haynes 
Bayly,  ten  years  later,  "  reclaimed  festive  song 
from  vulgarity."  More  carping  critics,  how 
ever,  worried  their  readers  a  good  deal  on  this 
point ;  and  the  nonconformist  conscience  cher 
ished  uneasy  doubts  as  to  Ilafed's  irregular 
courtship  and  NourmahaTs  marriage  lines. 
From  across  the  sea  came  the  accusing  voice  of 
young  Mr.  Channing  in  the  "  North  American," 
proclaiming  that  "  harlotry  has  found  in  Moore 
a  bard  to  smooth  her  coarseness  and  veil  her 
effrontery,  to  give  her  languor  for  modesty, 
and  affectation  for  virtue."  The  English 
"Monthly  Review,"  less  open  to  alarm,  con 
fessed  with  a  sigh  "a  depressing  regret  that, 


WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG    37 

with  the  exception  of  4  Paradise  and  the  Peri,' 
no  great  moral  effect  is  either  attained  or  at 
tempted  by  '  Lalla  Rookh.'  To  what  purpose 
all  this  sweetness  and  delicacy  of  thought  and 
language,  all  this  labour  and  profusion  of 
Oriental  learning?  What  head  is  set  right 
in  one  erroneous  notion,  what  heart  is  softened 
in  one  obdurate  feeling,  by  this  luxurious 
quarto?" 

It  is  a  lamentable  truth  that  Anacreon  ex 
hibits  none  of  Dante's  spiritual  depth,  and  that 
la  reine  Margot  fell  short  of  Queen  Victoria's 
fireside  qualities.  Nothing  could  make  a  mor 
alist  of  Moore.  The  light-hearted  creature  was  a 
model  of  kindness,  of  courage,  of  conjugal  fidel 
ity  ;  but — reversing  the  common  rule  of  life— 
he  preached  none  of  the  virtues  that  he  prac 
tised.  His  pathetic  attempts  to  adjust  his  tales 
to  the  established  conventions  of  society  failed 
signally  of  their  purpose.  Even  Byron  wrote 
him  that  little  Allegra  (as  yet  unfamiliar  with 
her  alphabet)  should  not  be  permitted  to  read 
"  Lalla  Rookh  ";  partly  because  it  was  n't  pro 
per,  and  partly  —  which  was  prettily  said  — 
lest  she  should  discover  "that  there  was  a 


38    WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG 

better  poet  than  Papa."  It  was  reserved  for 
Moore's  followers  to  present  their  verses  and 
stories  in  the  chastened  form  acceptable  to 
English  drawing-rooms,  and  permitted  to  Eng 
lish  youth.  "  La  Belle  Assemblee  "  published  in 
1819  an  Eastern  tale  called  "  Jahia  and  Mei- 
moune,"  in  which  the  lovers  converse  like  the 
virtuous  characters  in  "  Camilla."  Jahia  be 
comes  the  guest  of  an  infamous  sheik,  who  in 
toxicates  him  with  a  sherbet  composed  of  "  sugar, 
musk,  and  amber,"  and  presents  him  with  five 
thousand  sequins  and  a  beautiful  Circassian 
slave.  When  he  is  left  alone  with  this  damsel, 
she  addresses  him  thus :  "  I  feel  interested  in 
you,  and  present  circumstances  will  save  me 
from  the  charge  of  immodesty,  when  I  say 
that  I  also  love  you.  This  love  inspires  me 
with  fresh  horror  at  the  crimes  that  are  here 
committed." 

Jahia  protests  that  he  respectfully  returns 
her  passion,  and  that  his  intentions  are  of  an 
honourable  character,  whereupon  the  circum 
spect  maiden  rejoins :  "  Since  such  are  your 
sentiments,  I  will  perish  with  you  if  I  fail  in 
delivering  you  " ;  and  conducts  him,  through  a 


WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG    39 

tangle  of  adventures,  to  safety.  Jahia  then 
places  Meimoune  under  the  chaperonage  of 
his  mother  until  their  wedding  day ;  after 
which  we  are  happy  to  know  that  "  they  passed 
their  lives  in  the  enjoyment  of  every  comfort 
attending  on  domestic  felicity.  If  their  lot  was 
not  splendid  or  magnificent,  they  were  rich  in 
mutual  affection ;  and  they  experienced  that 
fortunate  medium  which,  far  removed  from 
indigence,  aspires  not  to  the  accumulation  of 
immense  wealth,  and  laughs  at  the  unenvied 
load  of  pomp  and  splendour,  which  it  neither 
seeks,  nor  desires  to  obtain." 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  many  obdurate  hearts 
were  softened,  and  many  erroneous  notions 
were  set  right  by  the  influence  of  a  story  like 
this.  In  the  "  Monthly  Museum  "  an  endless 
narrative  poem,  "  Abdallah,"  stretched  its  slow 
length  along  from  number  to  number,  bloom 
ing  with  fresh  moral  sentiments  on  every  page ; 
while  from  an  arid  wilderness  of  Moorish 
love  songs,  and  Persian  love  songs,  and  Cir 
cassian  love  songs,  and  Hindu  love  songs,  I 
quote  this  "  Arabian  "  love  song,  peerless  amid 
its  peers :  — 


40    WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH   WAS  YOUNG 

Thy  hair  is  black  as  the  starless  sky, 
And  clasps  thy  neck  as  it  loved  its  home  ; 

Yet  it  moves  at  the  sound  of  thy  faintest  sigh, 
Like  the  snake  that  lies  on  the  white  sea-foam. 

I  love  thee,  Ibla.     Thou  art  bright 

As  the  white  snow  on  the  hills  afar ; 
Thy  face  is  sweet  as  the  moon  by  night, 

And  thine  eye  like  the  clear  and  rolling  star. 

But  the  snow  is  poor  and  withers  soon, 
While  thou  art  firm  and  rich  in  hope ; 

And  never  (like  thine)  from  the  face  of  the  moon 
Flamed  the  dark  eye  of  the  antelope. 

The  truth  and  accuracy  of  this  last  observa 
tion  should  commend  the  poem  to  all  lovers  of 
nature. 

It  is  the  custom  in  these  days  of  morbid  ac 
curacy  to  laugh  at  the  second-hand  knowledge 
which  Moore  so  proudly  and  so  innocently  dis 
played.  Even  Mr.  Saintsbury  says  some  unkind 
things  about  the  notes  to  "  Lalla  Rookh," — 
scraps  of  twentieth-hand  knowledge,  he  calls 
them,  —  while  pleasantly  recording  his  affection 
for  the  poem  itself,  an  affection  based  upon  the 
reasonable  ground  of  childish  recollections.  In 
the  well-ordered  home  of  his  infancy,  none  but 
"  Sunday  books  "  might  be  read  on  Sundays 
in  nursery  or  schoolroom.  "  But  this  severity 


WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG    41 

was  tempered  by  one  of  those  easements  often 
occurring  in  a  world,  which,  if  not  the  best,  is 
certainly  not  the  worst  of  all  possible  worlds. 
For  the  convenience  of  servants,  or  for  some 
other  reason,  the  children  were  much  more 
in  the  drawing-room  on  Sundays  than  on  any 
other  day ;  and  it  was  an  unwritten  rule  that 
any  book  that  lived  in  the  drawing-room  was 
fit  Sunday  reading.  The  consequence  was  that 
from  the  time  I  could  read  until  childish  things 
were  put  away,  I  used  to  spend  a  considerable 
part  of  the  first  day  of  the  week  in  reading  and 
re-reading  a  collection  of  books,  four  of  which 
were  Scott's  poems,  'Lalla  Rookh,'  'The  Es 
says  of  Elia,'  and  Southey's  '  Doctor.'  There 
fore  it  may  be  that  I  rank  4  Lalla  Rookh '  too 

high." 

Blessed  memories,  and  thrice  blessed  influ 
ences  of  childhood!  But  if  "Lalla  Rookh," 
like  "  Vathek,"  was  written  to  be  the  joy  of 
imaginative  little  boys  and  girls  (alas  for  those 
who  now  replace  it  with  "  Allan  in  Alaska," 
and  "  Little  Cora  on  the  Continent"),  the  notes 
to  "  Lalla  Rookh  "  were,  to  my  infant  mind, 
even  more  enthralling  than  the  poem.  There 


42    WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG 

was  a  sketchiness  about  them,  a  detachment 
from  time  and  circumstance  —  I  always  hated 
being  told  the  whole  of  everything  —  which 
led  me  day  after  day  into  fresh  fields  of  con 
jecture.  The  nymph  who  was  encircled  by  a 
rainbow,  and  bore  a  radiant  son ;  the  scimitars 
that  were  so  dazzling  they  made  the  warriors 
wink  ;  the  sacred  well  which  reflected  the  moon 
at  midday ;  and  the  great  embassy  that  was 
sent  "  from  some  port  of  the  Indies  " —  a  wel 
come  vagueness  of  geography  —  to  recover  a 
monkey's  tooth,  snatched  away  by  some  equally 
nameless  conqueror  ;  —  what  child  could  fail  to 
love  such  floating  stars  of  erudition  ? 

Our  great-grandfathers  were  profoundly 
impressed  by  Moore's  text-book  acquirements. 
The  "Monthly  Review"  quoted  a  solid  page 
of  the  notes  to  dazzle  British  readers,  who  con 
fessed  themselves  amazed  to  find  a  fellow  coun 
tryman  so  much  "  at  home "  in  Persia  and 
Arabia.  Black  wood  authoritatively  announced 
that  Moore  was  familiar,  not  only  "  with  the 
grandest  regions  of  the  human  soul,"  -  -  which 
is  expected  of  a  poet, —  but  also  with  the 
remotest  boundaries  of  the  East;  and  that  in 


WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG    43 

every  tone  and  hue  and  form  he  was  "purely 
and  intensely  Asiatic."  "  The  carping  criticism 
of  paltry  tastes  and  limited  understandings 
faded  before  that  burst  of  admiration  with 
which  all  enlightened  spirits  hailed  the  beauty 
and  magnificence  of  '  Lalla  Rookh.'  ' 

Few  people  care  to  confess  to  "  paltry  tastes  " 
and  "  limited  understandings."  They  would 
rather  join  in  any  general  acclamation.  "  Brown 
ing's  poetry  obscure !  "  I  once  heard  a  lecturer 
say  with  scorn.  "  Let  us  ask  ourselves, 4  Obscure 
to  whom?'  No  doubt  a  great  many  things  are 
obscure  to  long-tailed  Brazilian  apes."  After 
which  his  audience,  with  one  accord,  admitted 
that  it  understood  "  Bordello."  So  when  Jeffrey 
—  great  umpire  of  games  whose  rules  he  never 
knew  —  informed  the  British  public  that  there 
was  not  in  "  Lalla  Rookh"  "  a  simile,  a  descrip 
tion,  a  name,  a  trait  of  history,  or  allusion  of 
romance  that  does  not  indicate  entire  familiar 
ity  with  the  life,  nature,  and  learning  of  the 
East,"  the  public  contentedly  took  his  word 
for  it.  When  he  remarked  that  "  the  dazzling 
splendours,  the  breathing  odours"  of  Araby 
were  without  doubt  Moore's  "  native  element," 


44    WHEN  LALLA   ROOKH   WAS  YOUNG 

the  public,  whose  native  element  was  neither 
splendid  nor  sweet-smelling,  envied  the  Irish 
man  his  softer  joys.  "  Lalla  Rookh  "  might  be 
"  voluptuous  "  (a  word  we  find  in  every  review 
of  the  period),  but  its  orientalism  was  beyond 
dispute.  Did  not  Mrs.  Skinner  tell  Moore  that 
she  had,  when  in  India,  translated  the  prose 
interludes  into  Bengali,  for  the  benefit  of  her 
moonshee,  and  that  the  man  was  amazed  at  the 
accuracy  of  the  costumes  ?  Did  not  the  nephew 
of  the  Persian  ambassador  in  Paris  tell  Mr. 
Stretch,  who  told  Moore,  that  "Lalla  Rookh'1 
had  been  translated  into  Persian ;  that  the 
songs  —  particularly  "  Beridemeer's  Stream  " 
—  were  sung  "  everywhere  " ;  and  that  the 
happy  natives  could  hardly  believe  the  whole 
work  had  not  been  taken  originally  from  a 
Persian  manuscript? 

I  'm  told,  dear  Moore,  your  lays  are  sung 

(Can  it  be  true,  you  lucky  man  ?) 
By  moonlight,  in  the  Persian  tongue, 

Along  the  streets  of  Ispahan. 

And  not  of  Ispahan  only ;  for  in  the  winter 
of  1821  the  Berlin  court  presented  "  Lalla 
Rookh "  with  such  splendour,  such  wealth  of 


WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG    45 

detail,  and  such  titled  actors,  that  Moore's 
heart  was  melted  and  his  head  was  turned  (as 
any  other  heart  would  have  been  melted,  and 
any  other  head  would  have  been  turned)  by 
the  reports  thereof.  A  Grand  Duchess  of  Rus 
sia  took  the  part  of  Lalla  Rookh ;  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland  was  Aurungzebe ;  and  a  beautiful 
young  sister  of  Prince  Radzivil  enchanted  all 
beholders  as  the  Peri.  "  Nothing  else  was 
talked  about  in  Berlin  "  (it  must  have  been  a 
limited  conversation) ;  the  King  of  Prussia  had 
a  set  of  engravings  made  of  the  noble  actors  in 
their  costumes;  and  the  Crown  Prince  sent 
word  to  Moore  that  he  slept  always  with  a  copy 
of  "  Lalla  Rookh  "  under  his  pillow,  which  was 
foolish,  but  flattering.  Hardly  had  the  echoes 
of  this  royal  fete  died  away,  when  Spontini 
brought  out  in  Berlin  his  opera  "  The  Feast 
of  Roses,"  and  Moore's  triumph  in  Prussia 
was  complete.  Byron,  infinitely  amused  at  the 
success  of  his  own  good  advice,  wrote  to  the 
happy  poet:  "  Your  Berlin  drama  is  an  honour 
unknown  since  the  days  of  Elkanah  Settle, 
whose  '  Empress  of  Morocco '  was  presented 
by  the  court  ladies,  which  was,  as  Johnson  re- 


46    WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG 

marks,  '  the  last  blast  of  inflammation  to  poor 
Dryden.'  " 

Who  shall  say  that  this  comparison  is  with 
out  its  dash  of  malice  ?  There  is  a  natural  limit 
to  the  success  we  wish  our  friends,  even  when 
we  have  spurred  them  on  their  way. 

If  the  English  court  did  not  lend  itself  with 
much  gayety  or  grace  to  dramatic  entertain 
ments,  English  society  was  quick  to  respond  to 
the  delights  of  a  modified  orientalism.  That  is 
to  say,  it  sang  melting  songs  about  bulbuls  and 
Shiraz  wine  ;  wore  ravishing  Turkish  costumes 
whenever  it  had  a  chance  (like  the  beautiful 
Mrs.  Winkworth  in  the  charades  at  Gaunt 
House);  and  covered  its  locks  —  if  they  were 
feminine  -locks  —  with  turbans  of  portentous 
size  and  splendour.  When  Mrs.  Fitzherbert, 
aged  seventy-three,  gave  a  fancy  dress  ball,  so 
many  of  her  guests  appeared  as  Turks,  and 
Georgians,  and  sultanas,  that  it  was  hard  to 
believe  that  Brighton,  and  not  Stamboul,  was 
the  scene  of  the  festivity.  At  an  earlier  enter 
tainment,  "  a  rural  breakfast  and  promenade," 
given  by  Mrs.  Hobart  at  her  villa  near  Fulham, 
and  "  graced  by  the  presence  of  royalty,"  the 


WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG    47 

leading  attraction  was  Mrs.  Bristow,  who  re 
presented  Queen  Nourjahad  in  the  "  Garden 
of  Roses."  "  Draped  in  all  the  magnificence  of 
Eastern  grandeur,  Mrs.  Bristow  was  seated  in 
the  larger  drawing-room  (which  was  very  beau 
tifully  fitted  up  with  cushions  in  the  Indian 
style),  smoking  her  hookah  amidst  all  sorts  of 
the  choicest  perfumes.  Mrs.  Bristow  was  very 
profuse  with  otto  of  roses,  drops  of  which  were 
thrown  about  the  ladies'  dresses.  The  whole 
house  was  scented  with  the  delicious  fragrance." 
The  "  European  Magazine,"  the  "  Monthly 
Museum,"  all  the  dim  old  periodicals  published 
in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century  for  femi 
nine  readers,  teem  with  such  "  society  notes." 
From  them,  too,  we  learn  that  by  1823  turbans 
of  "  rainbow  striped  gauze  frosted  with  gold  " 
were  in  universal  demand ;  while  "  black  velvet 
turbans,  enormously  large,  and  worn  very  much 
on  one  side,"  must  have  given  a  rakish  appear 
ance  to  stout  British  matrons.  "  La  Belle  As- 
semblee  "  describes  for  us  with  tender  enthusi 
asm  a  ravishing  turban,  "  in  the  Turkish  style," 
worn  in  the  winter  of  1823  at  the  theatre  and 
at  evening  parties.  This  masterpiece  was  of 


48    WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG 

"pink  oriental  crepe,  beautifully  folded  in 
front,  and  richly  ornamented  with  pearls.  The 
folds  are  fastened  on  the  left  side,  just  above 
the  ear,  with  a  Turkish  scimitar  of  pearls ;  and 
on  the  right  side  are  tassels  of  pearls,  sur 
mounted  by  a  crescent  and  a  star." 

Here  we  have  Lady  Jane  or  Lady  Amelia 
transformed  at  once  into  young  Nourmahal ; 
and,  to  aid  the  illusion,  a  "  Circassian  corset " 
was  devised,  free  from  encroaching  steel  or 
whalebone,  and  warranted  to  give  its  English 
wearers  the  "  flowing  and  luxurious  lines  "  ad 
mired  in  the  overfed  inmates  of  the  harem. 
When  the  passion  for  orientalism  began  to  sub 
side  in  London,  remote  rural  districts  caught 
and  prolonged  the  infection.  I  have  sympa 
thized  all  my  life  with  the  innocent  ambition 
of  Miss  Matty  Jenkyns  to  possess  a  sea-green 
turban,  like  the  one  worn  by  Queen  Adelaide ; 
and  have  never  been  able  to  forgive  that  ruth 
lessly  sensible  Mary  Smith  —  the  chronicler  of 
Cranford  —  for  taking  her  a  "  neat  middle-aged 
cap  "  instead.  "  I  was  most  particularly  anxious 
to  prevent  her  from  disfiguring  her  small  gentle 
mousy  face  with  a  great  Saracen's  head  tur- 


WHEN  LALLA  KOOKH  WAS  YOUNG  49 

ban,"  says  the  judicious  Miss  Smith  with 
a  smirk  of  self -commendation  ;  and  poor  Miss 
Matty  —  the  cap  being  bought  —  has  to  bow 
to  this  arbiter  of  fate.  How  much  we  all  suffer 
in  life  from  the  discretion  of  our  families  and 
friends ! 

Thackeray  laughed  the  dim  ghost  of  "  Lalla 
Kookh "  out  of  England.  He  mocked  at  the 
turbans,  and  at  the  old  ladies  who  wore  them  ; 
at  the  vapid  love  songs,  and  at  the  young  ladies 
who  sang  them. 

I  am  a  little  brown  bulbul.  Come  and  listen  in  the  moon 
light.  Praise  be  to  Allah !  I  am  a  merry  bard. 

He  derided  the  "  breathing  odours  of  Araby," 
and  the  Eastern  travellers  who  imported  this 
exotic  atmosphere  into  Grosvenor  Square. 
Yonng  Bedwin  Sands,  who  has  "  lived  under 
tents,"  who  has  published  a  quarto,  ornamented 
with  his  own  portrait  in  various  oriental  cos 
tumes,  and  who  goes  about  accompanied  by  a 
black  servant  of  most  unprepossessing  appear 
ance,  "just  like  another  Brian  de  Bois  Guil- 
bert,"  is  only  a  degree  less  ridiculous  than 
Clarence  Bulbul,  who  gives  Miss  Tokely  a  piece 
of  the  sack  in  which  an  indiscreet  Zuleika  was 


60    WHEN  LALLA  ROOKH  WAS  YOUNG 

drowned,  and  whose  servant  says  to  callers : 
"Mon  maitre  est  au  divan,"  or  "  Monsieur  trou- 
vera  Monsieur  dans  son  serail.  ...  lie  has 
coffee  and  pipes  for  everybody.  I  should  like 
you  to  have  seen  the  face  of  old  Bowly,  his 
college  tutor,  called  upon  to  sit  cross-legged 
on  a  divan,  a  little  cup  of  bitter  black  mocha 
put  into  his  hand,  and  a  large  amber-muzzled 
pipe  stuck  into  his  mouth  before  he  could  say 
it  was  a  fine  day.  Bowly  almost  thought  he  had 
compromised  his  principles  by  consenting  so  far 
to  this  Turkish  manner."  Bulbiil's  sure  and 
simple  method  of  commending  himself  to  young 
ladies  is  by  telling  them  they  remind  him  of  a 
girl  he  knew  in  Circassia, —  Ameena,  the  sister 
of  Schamyle  Bey.  "  Do  you  know,  Miss  Pirn," 
he  thoughtfully  observes,  u  that  you  would  fetch 
twenty  thousand  piastres  in  the  market  at  Con 
stantinople  ?"  Whereupon  Miss  Pirn  is  filled 
with  embarrassed  elation.  An  English  girl,  con 
scious  of  being  in  no  great  demand  at  home,  was 
naturally  flattered  as  well  as  fluttered  by  the 
thought  of  having  market  value  elsewhere.  And 
perhaps  this  feminine  instinct  was  at  the  root  of 
"  Lalla  Rookk's"  long  popularity  in  England. 


THE  CORRESPONDENT 

Correspondences  are  like  small-clothes  before  the  inven 
tion  of  suspenders;  it  is  impossible  to  keep  them  up. — 
SYDNEY  SMITH  to  MRS.  CROWE. 

IN  this  lamentable  admission,  in  this  blunt  and 
revolutionary  sentiment,  we  hear  the  first  clear 
striking  of  a  modern  note,  the  first  gasping  pro 
test  against  the  limitless  demands  of  letter-writ 
ing.  When  Sydney  Smith  was  a  little  boy,  it 
was  not  impossible  to  keep  a  correspondence 
up ;  it  was  impossible  to  let  it  go.  He  was  ten 
years  old  when  Sir  William  Pepys  copied  out 
long  portions  of  Mrs.  Montagu's  letters,  and 
left  them  as  a  legacy  to  his  heirs.  He  was 
twelve  years  old  when  Miss  Anna  Seward  — 
the  "  Swan  of  Lichfield  "  —  copied  thirteen 
pages  of  description  which  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Sedgwick  Whalley  had  written  her  from  Swit 
zerland,  and  sent  them  to  her  friend,  Mr.  Wil 
liam  Hayley.  She  called  this  "  snatching  him 
to  the  Continent  by  Whalley  an  magic."  What 
Mr.  Hayley  called  it  we  do  not  know ;  but  he 


62  THE  CORRESPONDENT 

had  his  revenge,  for  the  impartial  "  Swan " 
copied  eight  verses  of  an  "  impromptu  "  which 
Mr.  Hayley  had  written  upon  her,  and  sent 
them  in  turn  to  Mr.  Whalley  ;  —  thus  making 
each  friend  a  scourge  to  the  other,  and  widen 
ing  the  network  of  correspondence  which  had 
enmeshed  the  world. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  a  trifle  envious  of 
Mr.  Whalley,  who  looms  before  us  as  the  most 
petted  and  accomplished  of  clerical  bores,  of 
"literary  and  chess-playing  divines."  He  was 
but  twenty-six  when  the  kind-hearted  Bishop 
of  Ely  presented  him  with  the  living  of  Hag- 
worthingham,  stipulating  that  he  should  not 
take  up  his  residence  there,  —  the  neighbour 
hood  of  the  Lincolnshire  fens  being  considered 
an  unhealthy  one.  Mr.  Whalley  cheerfully  com 
plied  with  this  condition  ;  and  for  fifty  years 
the  duties  were  discharged  by  curates,  who 
could  not  afford  good  health  ;  while  the  rector 
spent  his  winters  in  Europe,  and  his  summers 
at  Mendip  Lodge.  He  was  of  an  amorous  dis 
position, —  "sentimentally  pathetic,"  Miss  Bur- 
ney  calls  him,  —  and  married  three  times,* two 
of  his  wives  being  women  of  fortune.  He  lived 


IVERS1TY 


THE  CORRESPONDENT  53 

in  good  society,  and  beyond  his  means,  like  a 
gentleman;  was  painted  by  Sir  Joshua  Rey 
nolds  (who  has  very  delicately  and  maliciously 
accentuated  his  resemblance  to  the  tiny  spaniel 
he  holds  in  his  arms)  ;  and  died  of  old  age,  in 
the  comfortable  assurance  that  he  had  lost 
nothing  the  world  could  give.  A  voluminous 
correspondence  —  afterwards  published  in  two 
volumes  —  afforded  scope  for  that  clerical  dif- 
f  useness  which  should  have  found  its  legitimate 
outlet  in  the  Hagworthingham  pulpit. 

The  Eev.  Augustus  Jessopp  has  recorded  a 
passionate  admiration  for  Cicero's  letters,  on 
the  ground  that  they  never  describe  scenery; 
but  Mr.  Whalley's  letters  seldom  do  anything 
else.  He  wrote  to  Miss  Sophia  Weston  a  de 
scription  of  Vaucluse,  which  fills  three  closely 
printed  pages.  Miss  Weston  copied  every  word, 
and  sent  it  to  Miss  Seward,  who  copied  every 
word  of  her  copy,  and  sent  it  to  the  long-suf 
fering  Mr.  Hayley,  with  the  remark  that  Mr. 
Whalley  and  Petrarch  were  "  kindred  spirits." 
Later  on  this  kinship  was  made  pleasantly  man 
ifest  by  the  publication  of  "  Edwy  and  Edilda," 
which  is  described  as  a  "  domestic  epic,"  and 


54  THE  CORRESPONDENT 

which  Mr.  AVhalley's  friends  considered  to  be 
a  moral  bulwark  as  well  as  an  epoch-making 
poem.  Indeed,  we  find  Miss  Seward  imploring 
him  to  republish  it,  on  the  extraordinary  ground 
that  it  will  add  to  his  happiness  in  heaven  to 
know  that  the  fruits  of  his  industry  "  continue 
to  inspire  virtuous  pleasure  through  passing 
generations."  It  is  animating  to  contemplate 
the  celestial  choirs  congratulating  the  angel 
Whalley  at  intervals  on  the  "  virtuous  pleasure  " 
inspired  by  "Edwy  and  Edilda."  "This,"  says 
Mr.  Kenwigs,  "  is  an  ewent  at  which  Evin  it 
self  looks  down." 

There  was  no  escape  from  the  letter-writer 
who,  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  twenty-five 
years  ago,  captured  a  coveted  correspondent. 
It  would  have  been  as  easy  to  shake  off  an  oc 
topus  or  a  boa-constrictor.  Miss  Seward  opened 
her  attack  upon  Sir  Walter  Scott,  whom  she 
had  never  seen,  with  a  long  and  passionate  let 
ter,  lamenting  the  death  of  a  friend  whom  Scott 
had  never  seen.  She  conjured  him  not  to  an 
swer  this  letter,  because  she  was  "  dead  to  the 
world."  Scott  gladly  obeyed,  content  that  the 
kdy  should  be  at  least  dead  to  him,  which  was 


THE   CORRESPONDENT  65 

the  last  possibility  she  contemplated.  Before 
twelve  months  were  out  they  were  in  brisk  cor 
respondence,  an  acquaintance  was  established, 
and  when  she  died  in  earnest,  some  years  later, 
he  found  himself  one  of  her  literary  executors, 
and  twelve  quarto  manuscript  volumes  of  her 
letters  waiting  to  be  published.  These  Scott 
wisely  refused  to  touch ;  but  he  edited  her 
poems,  —  a  task  he  much  disliked,  —  wrote  the 
epitaph  on  her  monument  in  Lichfield  Cathe 
dral,  and  kindly  maintained  that,  although  her 
sentimentality  appalled  him,  and  her  enthusi 
asm  chilled  his  soul,  she  was  a  talented  and 
pleasing  person. 

The  most  formidable  thing  about  the  letters 
of  this  period  —  apart  from  their  length  —  is 
their  eloquence.  It  bubbles  and  seethes  over 
every  page.  Miss  Seward,  writing  to  Mrs. 
Knowles  in  1789  upon  the  dawning  of  the 
French  Revolution,  of  which  she  understood  no 
more  than  a  canary,  pipes  an  ecstatic  trill.  "  So 
France  has  dipped  her  lilies  in  the  living  stream 
of  American  freedom,  and  bids  her  sons  be 
slaves  no  longer.  In  such  a  contest  the  vital 
sluices  must  be  wastef  ully  opened ;  but  few  Eng- 


56  THE  CORRESPONDENT 

lish  hearts  I  hope  there  are  that  do  not  wish 
victory  may  sit  upon  the  swords  that  freedom 
has  unsheathed."  It  sounds  so  exactly  like  the 
Americans  in  "  Martin  Chuzzlewit "  that  one 
doubts  whether  Mr.  Jefferson  Brick  or  the 
Honourable  Elijah  Pogram  really  uttered  the 
sentiment ;  while  surely  to  Mrs.  Hominy,  and 
not  to  the  Lichfield  Swan,  must  be  credited 
this  beautiful  passage  about  a  middle-aged  but 
newly  married  couple :  "  The  berries  of  holly, 
with  which  Hymen  formed  that  garland,  blush 
through  the  snows  of  time,  and  dispute  the  prize 
of  happiness  with  the  roses  of  youth ;  —  and 
they  are  certainly  less  subject  to  the  blights  of 
expectation  and  palling  fancy." 

It  is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  time  when  letters 
like  these  were  sacredly  treasured  by  the  re 
cipients  (our  best  friend,  the  waste-paper  bas 
ket,  seems  to  have  been  then  unknown);  when 
the  writers  thereof  bequeathed  them  as  a  legacy 
to  the  world  ;  and  when  the  public  —  being 
under  no  compulsion  —  bought  six  volumes  of 
them  as  a  contribution  to  English  literature. 

O 

It  is  hard  to  think  of  a  girl  of  twenty-one  writ 
ing  to  an  intimate  friend  as  Elizabeth  Robinson, 


THE  CORRESPONDENT  57 

afterwards  the  "  great  "  Mrs.  Montagu,  wrote 
to  the  young  Duchess  of  Portland,  who  appears 
to  have  ventured  upon  a  hope  that  they  were 
having  a  mild  winter  in  Kent. 

"  I  am  obliged  to  your  Grace  for  your  good 
wishes  of  fair  weather ;  sunshine  gilds  every 
object,  but,  alas  !  December  is  but  cloudy  wea 
ther,  how  few  seasons  boast  many  days  of  calm ! 
April,  which  is  the  blooming  youth  of  the  year, 
is  as  famous  for  hasty  showers  as  for  gentle  sun 
shine.  May,  June,  and  July  have  too  much  heat 
and  violence,  the  Autumn  withers  the  Summer's 
gayety,  and  in  the  Winter  the  hopeful  blossoms 
of  Spring  and  fair  fruits  of  Summer  are  de 
cayed,  and  storms  and  clouds  arise." 

After  these  obvious  truths,  for  which  the 
almanac  stands  responsible,  Miss  Robinson  pro 
ceeds  to  compare  human  life  to  the  changing 
year,  winding  up  at  the  close  of  a  dozen  pages  : 
"  Happy  and  worthy  are  those  few  whose  youth 
is  not  impetuous,  nor  their  age  sullen;  they 
indeed  should  be  esteemed,  and  their  happy 
influence  courted." 

Twenty-one,  and  ripe  for  moral  platitudes ! 
What  wonder  that  we  find  the  same  lady,  when 


58  THE   CORRESPONDENT 

crowned  with  years  and  honours,  writing  to  the 
son  of  her  friend,  Lord  Lyttelton,  a  remorse 
lessly  long  letter  of  precept  and  good  counsel, 
which  that  young  gentleman  (being  afterwards 
known  as  the  wicked  Lord  Lyttelton)  seems 
never  to  have  taken  to  heart. 

"  The  morning  of  life,  like  the  morning  of 
the  day,  should  be  dedicated  to  business.  Give  it 
therefore,  dear  Mr.  Lyttelton,  to  strenuous  ex 
ertion  and  labour  of  mind,  before  the  indolence 
of  the  meridian  hour,  or  the  unabated  fervour 
of  the  exhausted  day,  renders  you  unfit  for 
severe  application." 

"  Unabated  fervour  of  the  exhausted  day  " 
is  a  phrase  to  be  commended.  We  remember 
with  awe  that  Mrs.  Montagu  was  the  brightest 
star  in  the  chaste  firmament  of  female  intel 
lect  ;  —  "  the  first  woman  for  literary  knowledge 
in  England,"  wrote  Mrs.  Thrale;  "and,  if  in 
England,  I  hope  I  may  say  in  the  world."  We 
hope  so,  indeed.  None  but  a  libertine  would 
doubt  it.  And  no  one  less  contumelious  than 
Dr.  Johnson  ever  questioned  Mrs.  Montagu's 
supremacy.  She  was,  according  to  her  great- 
grandniece,  Miss  Climenson,  "  adored  by  men," 


THE  CORRESPONDENT  59 

while  "  purest  of  the  pure  " ;  which  was  equally 
pleasant  for  herself  and  for  Mr.  Montagu. 
She  wrote  more  letters,  with  fewer  punctua 
tion  marks,  than  any  Englishwoman  of  her 
day ;  and  her  nephew,  the  fourth  Baron  Rokeby, 
nearly  blinded  himself  in  deciphering  the  two 
volumes  of  undated  correspondence  which  were 
printed  in  1810.  Two  more  followed  in  1813, 
after  which  the  gallant  Baron  either  died  at  his 
post  or  was  smitten  with  despair;  for  sixty- 
eight  cases  of  letters  lay  undisturbed  for  the 
best  part  of  a  century,  when  they  passed  into 
Miss  Climenson's  hands.  This  intrepid  lady 
received  them  —  so  she  says  —  with  "  un 
bounded  joy  "  ;  and  has  already  published  two 
fat  volumes,  with  the  promise  of  several  others 
in  the  near  future.  "  Les  morts  n'ecrivent 
point,"  said  Madame  de  Maintenon  hope 
fully;  but  of  what  benefit  is  this  inactivity, 
when  we  still  continue  to  receive  their  letters  ? 
Miss  Elizabeth  Carter,  called  by  courtesy 
Mrs.  Carter,  was  the  most  vigorous  of  Mrs. 
Montagu's  correspondents.  Although  a  lady 
of  learning,  who  read  Greek  and  had  dipped 
into  Hebrew,  she  was  far  too  "  humble  and 


60  THE  CORRESPONDENT 

unambitious "  to  claim  an  acquaintance  with 
the  exalted  mistress  of  Montagu  House ;  but 
that  patroness  of  literature  treated  her  with 
such  true  condescension  that  they  were  soon 
on  the  happiest  terms.  When  Mrs.  Montagu 
writes  to  Miss  Carter  that  she  has  seen  the 
splendid  coronation  of  George  III,  Miss  Carter 
hastens  to  remind  her  that  such  splendour  is 
for  majesty  alone. 

"  High  rank  and  power  require  every  exter 
nal  aid  of  pomp  and  eclat  that  may  awe  and 
astonish  spectators  by  the  ideas  of  the  mag 
nificent  and  sublime ;  while  the  ornaments  of 
more  equal  conditions  should  be  adapted  to  the 
quiet  tenour  of  general  life,  and  be  content  to 
charm  and  engage  by  the  gentler  graces  of  the 
beautiful  and  pleasing." 

Mrs.  Montagu  was  fond  of  display.  All  her 
friends  admitted,  and  some  deplored  the  fact. 
But  surely  there  was  no  likelihood  of  her  ap 
propriating  the  coronation  services  as  a  feature 
for  the  entertainments  at  Portman  Square. 

Advice,  however,  was  the  order  of  the  day. 
As  the  excellent  Mrs.  Chapone  wrote  to  Sir 
William  Pepys :  "  It  is  a  dangerous  commerce 


THE  CORRESPONDENT  61 

for  friends  to  praise  each  other's  Virtues,  in 
stead  of  reminding  each  other  of  duties  and 
of  failings."  Yet  a  too  robust  candour  carried 
perils  of  its  own,  for  Miss  Seward  having 
written  to  her  "  beloved  Sophia  Weston  "  with 
"  an  ingenuousness  which  I  thought  necessary 
for  her  welfare,  but  which  her  high  spirits 
would  not  brook,"  Sophia  was  so  unaffectedly 
angry  that  twelve  years  of  soothing  silence 
followed. 

Another  wonderful  thing  about  the  letter- 
writers,  especially  the  female  letter-writers,  of 
this  engaging  period  is  the  wealth  of  hyperbole 
in  which  they  rioted.  Nothing  is  told  in  plain 
terms.  Tropes,  metaphors,  and  similes  adorn 
every  page ;  and  the  supreme  elegance  of  the 
language  is  rivalled  only  by  the  elusiveness  of 
the  idea,  which  is  lost  in  an  eddy  of  words. 
Marriage  is  always  alluded  to  as  the  "  hymeneal 
torch,"  or  the  "  hymeneal  chain,"  or  "  hymen 
eal  emancipation  from  parental  care."  Birds 
are  "  feathered  muses,"  and  a  heart  is  a  "  vital 
urn."  When  Mrs.  Montagu  writes  to  Mr.  Gil 
bert  West,  that  "  miracle  of  the  Moral  World," 
to  condole  with  him  on  his  gout,  she  laments 


62  THE  CORRESPONDENT 

that  his  "  writing  hand,  first  dedicated  to  the 
Muses,  then  with  maturer  judgment  conse 
crated  to  the  .  N}Tmphs  of  Solyma,  should  be 
led  captive  by  the  cruel  foe."  If  Mr.  West 
chanced  not  to  know  who  or  what  the  Nymphs 
of  Solyma  were,  he  had  the  intelligent  pleasure 
of  finding  out.  Miss  Seward  describes  Mrs. 
Tighe's  sprightly  charms  as  "  Aonian  inspira 
tion  added  to  the  cestus  of  Venus  "  ;  and  speaks 
of  the  elderly  "  ladies  of  Llangollen  "as,  "  in 
all  but  the  voluptuous  sense,  Armidas  of  its 
bowers."  Duelling  is  to  her  "  the  murderous 
punctilio  of  Luciferian  honour."  A  Scotch 
gentleman  who  writes  verse  is  "  a  Cambrian 
Orpheus  " ;  a  Lichfield  gentleman  who  sketches 
is  "our  Lichfield  Claude";  and  a  budding 
clerical  writer  is  "  our  young  sacerdotal  Mar- 
cellus."  When  the  "  Swan  "  wished  to  apprise 
Scott  of  Dr.  Darwin's  death,  it  never  occurred 
to  her  to  write,  as  we  in  this  duD  age  should 
do:  "Dr.  Darwin  died  last  night,"  or,  "Poor 
Dr.  Darwin  died  last  night."  She  wrote:  "  A 
bright  luminary  in  this  neighbourhood  recently 
shot  from  his  sphere  with  awful  and  deplor 
able  suddenness";  —  thus  pricking  Sir  Wai- 


THE  CORRESPONDENT  63 

ter's  imagination  to  the  wonder  point  before 
descending  to  facts.  Even  the  rain  and  snow 
were  never  spoken  of  in  the  plain  language 
of  the  Weather  Bureau  ;  and  the  elements  had 
a  set  of  allegories  all  their  own.  Miss  Carter 
would  have  scorned  to  take  a  walk  by  the  sea. 
She  "  chased  the  ebbing  Neptune."  Mrs.  Cha- 
pone  was  not  blown  by  the  wind.  She  was 
"buffeted  by  Eolus  and  his  sons."  Miss  Seward 
does  not  hope  that  Mr.  Whalley's  rheumatism 
is  better ;  but  that  he  has  overcome  "  the  mal- 
influence  of  marine  damps,  and  the  monoton 
ous  murmuring  of  boundless  waters."  Perhaps 
the  most  triumphant  instance  on  record  of  sus 
tained  metaphor  is  Madame  d'Arblay's  account 
of  Mrs.  Montagu's  yearly  dinner  to  the  London 
chimney-sweeps,  in  which  the  word  sweep  is 
never  once  used,  so  that  the  editor  was  actually 
compelled  to  add  a  footnote  to  explain  what 
the  lady  meant.  The  boys  are  "  jetty  objects," 
"  degraded  outcasts  from  society,"  and  "  sooty 
little  agents  of  our  most  blessed  luxury."  They 
are  "  hapless  artificers  who  perform  the  most 
abject  offices  of  any  authorized  calling  " ;  they 
are  "  active  guardians  of  our  blazing  hearth  "; 


64  THE  CORRESPONDENT 

but  plain  chimney-sweeps,  never!  Madame 
d'Arblay  would  have  perished  at  the  stake 
before  using  so  vulgar  and  obvious  a  term. 

How  was  this  mass  of  correspondence  pre 
served?  How  did  it  happen  that  the  letters 
were  never  torn  up,  or  made  into  spills, —  the 
common  fate  of  all  such  missives  when  I  was  a 
little  girl.  Granted  that  Miss  Carter  treasured 
Mrs.  Montagu's  letters  (she  declared  fervidly 
she  could  never  be  so  barbarous  as  to  destroy 
one),  and  that  Mrs.  Montagu  treasured  Miss 
Carter's.  Granted  that  Miss  Weston  treasured 
Mr.  Whalley's,  and  that  Mr.  Whalley  treas 
ured  Miss  Weston's.  Granted  that  Miss  Sew- 
ard  provided  against  all  contingencies  by  copy 
ing  her  own  letters  into  fat  blank  books  before 
they  were  mailed,  elaborating  her  spineless 
sentences,  and  omitting  everything  she  deemed 
too  trivial  or  too  domestic  for  the  public  ear. 
But  is  it  likely  that  young  Lyttelton  at  Ox 
ford  laid  sacredly  away  Mrs.  Montagu's  pages 
of  good  counsel,  or  that  young  Franks  at  Cam 
bridge  preserved  the  ponderous  dissertations  of 
Sir  William  Pepys?  Sir  William  was  a  Baro 
net,  a  Master  in  Chancery,  and  —  unlike  his 


THE  CORRESPONDENT  65 

famous  ancestor  —  a  most  respectable  and  ex 
emplary  gentleman.  His  innocent  ambition  was 
to  be  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the  literary 
lights  of  his  day.  He  knew  and  ardently  ad 
mired  Dr.  Johnson,  who  in  return  detested  him 
cordially.  He  knew  and  revered,  "  in  unison 
with  the  rest  of  the  world,"  Miss  Hannah  More. 
He  corresponded  at  great  length  with  lesser 
lights,  —  with  Mrs.  Chapone,  and  Mrs.  Hart 
ley,  and  Sir  Nathaniel  Wraxall.  He  wrote 
endless  commentaries  on  Homer  and  Virgil  to 
young  Franks,  and  reams  of  good  advice  to  his 
little  son  at  Eton.  There  is  something  pathetic 
in  his  regret  that  the  limitations  of  life  will  not 
permit  him  to  be  as  verbose  as  he  would  like. 
"  I  could  write  for  an  hour,"  he  assures  poor 
Franks,  "  upon  that  most  delightful  of  all  pas 
sages,  the  Lion  deprived  of  its  Young ;  but  the 
few  minutes  one  can  catch  amidst  the  Noise, 
hurry  and  confusion  of  an  Assize  town  will  not 
admit  of  any  Classical  discussions.  But  was  I 
in  the  calm  retirement  of  your  Study  at  Acton, 
I  have  much  to  say  to  you,  to  which  I  can  only 
allude." 

The  publication  of  scores  and  scores  of  such 


66  THE  CORRESPONDENT 

letters,  all  written  to  one  unresponsive  young 
man  at  Cambridge  (who  is  repeatedly  reproached 
for  not  answering  them),  makes  us  wonder 
afresh  who  kept  the  correspondence ;  and  the 
problem  is  deepened  by  the  appearance  of  Sir 
William's  letters  to  his  son.  This  is  the  way 
the  first  one  begins :  — 

"  MY  DEAR  BOY,  —  I  cannot  let  a  Post  es 
cape  me  without  giving  you  the  Pleasure  of 
knowing  how  much  you  have  gladdened  the 
Hearts  of  two  as  affectionate  Parents  as  ever 
lived ;  when  you  tell  us  that  the  Principles  of 
Religion  begin  already  to  exert  their  efficacy 
in  making  you  look  down  with  contempt  on  the 
wretched  grovelling  Vices  with  which  you  are 
surrounded,  you  make  the  most  delightful  Re 
turn  you  can  ever  make  for  our  Parental  Care 
and  Affection ;  you  make  Us  at  Peace  with 
Ourselves;  and  enable  us  to  hope  that  our 
dear  Boy  will  Persevere  in  that  Path  which  will 
ensure  the  greatest  Share  of  Comfort  here,  and 
a  certainty  of  everlasting  Happiness  hereafter." 

I  am  disposed  to  think  that  Sir  William 
made  a  fair  copy  of  this  letter  and  of  others 


THE  CORRESPONDENT  67 

like  it,  and  laid  them  aside  as  models  of  pa 
rental  exhortation.  Whether  young  Pepys  was 
a  little  prig,  or  a  particularly  accomplished  little 
scamp  (and  both  possibilities  are  open  to  consid 
eration),  it  seems  equally  unlikely  that  an  Eton 
boy's  desk  would  have  proved  a  safe  repository 
for  such  ample  and  admirable  discourses. 

The  publication  of  Cowper's  letters  in  1803 
and  1804  struck  a  chill  into  the  hearts  of  ac 
complished  and  erudite  correspondents.  Poor 
Miss  Seward  never  rallied  from  the  shock  of 
their  "  commonness,"  and  of  their  popularity. 
Here  was  a  man  who  wrote  about  beggars  and 
postmen,  about  cats  and  kittens,  about  buttered 
toast  and  the  kitchen  table.  Here  was  a  man 
who  actually  looked  at  things  before  he  de 
scribed  them  (which  was  a  startling  innova 
tion)  ;  who  called  the  wind  the  wind,  and  but 
tercups  buttercups,  and  a  hedgehog  a  hedgehog. 
Miss  Seward  honestly  despised  Cowper's  letters. 
She  said  they  were  without  "  imagination  or 
eloquence,"  without  "discriminative  criticism," 
without "  characteristic  investigation."  Investi 
gating  the  relations  between  the  family  cat  and 
an  intrusive  viper  was,  from  her  point  of  view, 


68  THE   CORRESPONDENT 

unworthy  the  dignity  of  an  author.  Cowper's 
love  of  detail,  his  terrestrial  turn  of  mind,  his 
humour,  and  his  veracity  were  disconcerting 
in  an  artificial  age.  AY  hen  Miss  Carter  took  a 
country  walk,  she  did  not  stoop  to  observe  the 
trivial  things  she  saw.  Apparently  she  never 
saw  anything.  What  she  described  were  the 
sentiments  and  emotions  awakened  in  her  by  a 
featureless  principle  called  Nature.  Even  the 
ocean  —  which  is  too  big  to  be  overlooked  — 
started  her  on  a  train  of  moral  reflections,  in 
which  she  passed  easily  from  the  grandeur  of  the 
elements  to  the  brevity  of  life,  and  the  paltri 
ness  of  earthly  ambitions.  "  How  vast  are  the 
capacities  of  the  soul,  and  how  little  and  con 
temptible  its  aims  and  pursuits."  With  this 
original  remark,  the  editor  of  the  letters  (a 
nephew  and  a  clergyman)  was  so  delighted  that 
he  added  a  pious  comment  of  his  own. 

"  If  such  be  the  case,  how  strong  and  conclu 
sive  is  the  argument  deduced  from  it,  that  the 
soul  must  be  destined  to  another  state  more 
suitable  to  its  views  and  powers.  It  is  much  to 
be  lamented  that  Mrs.  Carter  did  not  pursue 
this  line  of  thought  any  further." 


THE   CORRESPONDENT  69 

People  who  bought  nine  volumes  of  a  corre 
spondence  like  this  were  expected,  as  the  editor 
warns  them,  to  derive  from  it  "  moral,  literary, 
and  religious  improvement."  It  was  in  every 
way  worthy  of  a  lady  who  had  translated  Epic- 
tetus,  and  who  had  the  "  great "  Mrs.  Montagu 
for  a  friend.  But,  as  Miss  Seward  pathetically 
remarked,  "  any  well-educated  person,  with 
talents  not  above  the  common  level,  produces 
every  day  letters  as  well  worth  attention  as 
most  of  Cowper's,  especially  as  to  diction." 
The  perverseness  of  the  public  in  buying,  in 
reading,  in  praising  these  letters,  filled  her  with 
pained  bewilderment.  Not  even  the  writer's 
sincere  and  sad  piety,  his  tendency  to  moralize, 
and  the  transparent  innocence  of  his  life  could 
reconcile  her  to  plain  transcripts  from  nature, 
or  to  such  an  unaffecting  incident  as  this :  — 

"  A  neighbour  of  mine  in  Silver  End  keeps 
an  ass ;  the  ass  lives  on  the  other  side  of  the 
garden  wall,  and  I  am  writing  in  the  green 
house.  It  happens  that  he  is  this  morning  most 
musically  disposed ;  either  cheered  by  the  fine 
weather,  or  by  some  new  tune  which  he  has 
just  acquired,  or  by  finding  his  voice  more  har- 


70  THE  CORRESPONDENT 

monious  than  usual.  It  would  be  cruel  to  mor 
tify  so  fine  a  singer,  therefore  I  do  not  tell  him 
that  he  interrupts  and  hinders  me  ;  but  I  ven 
ture  to  tell  you  so,  and  to  plead  his  perform 
ance  in  excuse  of  my  abrupt  conclusion." 

Here  is  not  only  the  "  common "  diction 
which  Miss  Seward  condemned,  but  a  very  com 
mon  casualty,  which  she  would  have  naturally 
deemed  beneath  notice.  Cowper  wrote  a  great 
deal  about  animals,  and  always  with  fine  and 
humorous  appreciation.  He  sought  relief  from 
the  hidden  torment  of  his  soul  in  the  contem 
plation  of  creatures  who  fill  their  place  in  life 
without  morals,  and  without  misgivings.  We 
know  what  safe  companions  they  were  for  him 
when  we  read  his  account  of  his  hares,  of  his 
kitten  dancing  on  her  hind  legs,  —  "  an  exer 
cise  which  she  performs  with  all  the  grace 
imaginable,"  —  and  of  his  goldfinches  amor 
ously  kissing  each  other  between  the  cage  wires. 
When  Miss  Seward  bent  her  mind  to  "  the 
lower  orders  of  creation,"  she  did  not  describe 
them  at  all ;  she  gave  them  the  benefit  of  that 
"discriminative  criticism"  which  she  felt  that 
Cowper  lacked.  Here,  for  example,  is  her 


THE  CORRESPONDENT  71 

thoughtful  analysis  of  man's  loyal  servitor,  the 
dog :  — 

"  That  a  dog  is  a  noble,  grateful,  faithful 
animal  we  must  all  be  conscious,  and  deserves 
a  portion  of  man's  tenderness  and  care ;  —  yet, 
from  its  utter  incapacity  of  more  than  glimpses 
of  rationality,  there  is  a  degree  of  insanity,  as 
well  as  of  impoliteness  to  his  acquaintance,  and 
of  unkindness  to  his  friends,  in  lavishing  so 
much  more  of  his  attention  in  the  first  instance, 
and  of  affection  in  the  latter,  upon  it  than 
upon  them." 

It  sounds  like  a  parody  on  a  great  living 
master  of  complex  prose.  By  its  side,  Cowper's 
description  of  Beau  is  certainly  open  to  the 
reproach  of  plainness. 

"  My  dog  is  a  spaniel.  Till  Miss  Gunning 
begged  him,  he  was  the  property  of  a  farmer, 
and  had  been  accustomed  to  lie  in  the  chimney 
corner  among  the  embers  till  the  hair  was 
singed  from  his  back,  and  nothing  was  left  of 
his  tail  but  the  gristle.  Allowing  for  these 
disadvantages,  he  is  really  handsome;  and 
when  nature  shall  have  furnished  him  with 
a  new  coat,  a  gift  which,  in  consideration  of 


72  THE  CORRESPONDENT  * 

the  ragged  condition  of  his  old  one,  it  is  hoped 
she  will  not  long  delay,  he  will  then  be  unri 
valled  in  personal  endowments  by  any  dog  in 
this  country." 

No  wonder  the  Lichfield  Swan  was  daunted 
by  the  inconceivable  popularity  of  such  letters. 
No  wonder  Miss  Hannah  More  preferred  Aken- 
side  to  Cowper.  What  had  these  eloquent 
ladies  to  do  with  quiet  observation,  with  sober 
felicity  of  phrase,  with  "the  style  of  honest 
men"! 


THE  NOVELIST 

Soft  Sensibility,  sweet  Beauty's  soul ! 
Keeps  her  coy  state,  and  animates  the  whole. 

HAYLEY. 

READERS  of  Miss  Burney's  Diary  will  remem 
ber  her  maidenly  confusion  when  Colonel  Fairly 
(the  Honourable  Stephen  Digby)  recommends 
to  her  a  novel  called  "  Original  Love-Letters 
between  a  Lady  of  Quality  and  a  Person  of  In 
ferior  Station."  The  authoress  of  "Evelina" 
and  "  Cecilia  " — then  thirty-six  years  of  age — • 
is  embarrassed  by  the  glaring  impropriety  of 
this  title.  In  vain  Colonel  Fairly  assures  her 
that  the  book  contains  "  nothing  but  good  sense, 
moral  reflections,  and  refined  ideas,  clothed  in 
the  most  expressive  and  elegant  language." 
Fanny,  though  longing  to  read  a  work  of  such 
estimable  character,  cannot  consent  to  borrow, 
or  even  discuss,  anything  so  compromising  as 
love-letters ;  and,  with  her  customary  coyness, 
murmurs  a  few  words  of  denial.  Colonel  Fairly, 
however,  is  not  easily  daunted.  Three  days  later 


74  THE  NOVELIST 

he  actually  brings  the  volume  to  that  virginal 
bower,  and  asks  permission  to  read  portions  of 
it  aloud,  excusing  his  audacity  with  the  solemn 
assurance  that  there  was  no  person,  not  even 
his  own  daughter,  in  whose  hands  he  would 
hesitate  to  place  it.  "  It  was  now  impossible  to 
avoid  saying  that  I  should  like  to  hear  it," 
confesses  Miss  Burney.  "  I  should  seem  else  to 
doubt  either  his  taste  or  his  delicacy,  while  I 
have  the  highest  opinion  of  both."  So  the  book 
is  produced,  and  the  fair  listener,  bending  over 
her  needlework  to  hide  her  blushes,  acknow 
ledges  it  to  be  "  moral,  elegant,  feeling,  and 
rational,"  while  lamenting  that  the  unhappy 
nature  of  its  title  makes  its  presence  a  source 
of  embarrassment. 

This  edifying  little  anecdote  sheds  light  upon 
a  palmy  period  of  propriety.  Miss  Burney's 
self-consciousness,  her  superhuman  diffidence, 
and  the  "  delicious  confusion "  which  over 
whelmed  her  upon  the  most  insignificant  occa 
sions,  were  beacon  lights  to  her  "  sisters  of  Par 
nassus,"  to  the  less  distinguished  women  who 
followed  her  brilliant  lead.  The  passion  for 
novel-reading  was  asserting  itself  for  the  first 


THE  NOVELIST  75 

time  in  the  history  of  the  world  as  a  dominant 
note  of  femininity.  The  sentimentalities  of  fic 
tion  expanded  to  meet  the  woman's  standard,  to 
satisfy  her  irrational  demands.  "  If  the  story 
teller  had  always  had  mere  men  for  an  audi 
ence,"  says  an  acute  English  critic,  "  there 
would  have  been  no  romance ;  nothing  but  the 
improving  fable,  or  the  indecent  anecdote."  It 
was  the  woman  who,  as  Miss  Seward  sorrow 
fully  observed,  sucked  the  "  sweet  poison " 
which  the  novelist  administered;  it  was  the 
woman  who  stooped  conspicuously  to  the  "reign 
ing  folly  "  of  the  day. 

The  particular  occasion  of  this  outbreak  on 
Miss  Se ward's  part  was  the  extraordinary  suc 
cess  of  a  novel,  now  long  forgotten  by  the 
world,  but  which  in  its  time  rivalled  in  popu 
larity  "  Evelina,"  and  the  well-loved  "  Mysteries 
of  Udolpho."  Its  plaintive  name  is  "  Emmeline ; 
or  the  Orphan  of  the  Castle,"  and  its  authoress, 
Charlotte  Smith,  was  a  woman  of  courage, 
character,  and  good  ability ;  also  of  a  cheerful 
temperament,  which  we  should  never  have  sur 
mised  from  her  works.  It  is  said  that  her  son 
owed  his  advancement  in  the  East  India  Com- 


76  THE   NOVELIST 

pany  solely  to  the  admiration  felt  for  "  Emme- 
line,"  which  was  being  read  as  assiduously  in 
Bengal  as  in  London.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  always 
the  gentlest  of  critics,  held  that  it  belonged  to 
the  "  highest  branch  of  fictitious  narrative." 
The  Queen,  who  considered  it  a  masterpiece, 
lent  it  to  Miss  Burney,  who  in  turn  gave  it  to 
Colonel  Fairly,  who  ventured  to  observe  that  it 
was  not  "piquant,"  and  asked  for  a  "  Rambler" 
instead. 

"  Emmeline "  is  not  piquant.  Its  heroine 
has  more  tears  than  Niobe.  "  Formed  of  the 
softest  elements,  and  with  a  mind  calculated  for 
select  friendship  and  domestic  happiness,"  it  is 
her  misfortune  to  be  loved  by  all  the  men  she 
meets.  The  "  interesting  languor  "  of  a  coun 
tenance  habitually  "  wet  with  tears "  proves 
their  undoing.  Her  "  deep  convulsive  sobs  " 
charm  them  more  than  the  laughter  of  other 
maidens.  When  the  orphan  leaves  the  castle 
for  the  first  time,  she  weeps  bitterly  for  an 
hour ;  when  she  converses  with  her  uncle,  she 
can  "  no  longer  command  her  tears,  sobs 
obliged  her  to  cease  speaking  "  ;  and  when  he 
urges  upon  her  the  advantages  of  a  worldly 


THE  NOVELIST  77 

marriage,  she  —  as  if  that  were  possible  — 
"wept  more  than  before."  When  Delamere, 
maddened  by  rejection,  carries  her  off  in  a  post- 
chaise  (a  delightful  frontispiece  illustrates  this 
episode),  "  a  shower  of  tears  fell  from  her  eyes  " ; 
and  even  a  rescue  fails  to  raise  her  spirits. 
Her  response  to  Godolphin's  tenderest  ap 
proaches  is  to  "  wipe  away  the  involuntary  be 
trayers  of  her  emotion  "  ;  and  when  he  exclaims 
in  a  transport :  "  Enchanting  softness  !  Is  then 
the  safety  of  Godolphin  so  dear  to  that  angelic 
bosom  ?  "  she  answers  him  with  "audible  sobs." 
The  other  characters  in  the  book  are  nearly 
as  tearful.  When  Delamere  is  not  striking  his 
forehead  with  his  clenched  fist,  he  is  weeping 
at  Emmeline's  feet.  The  repentant  Fitz-Ed- 
ward  lays  his  head  on  a  chair,  and  weeps  "  like 
a  woman."  Lady  Adelina,  who  has  stooped  to 
folly,  naturally  sheds  many  tears,  and  writes  an 
"  Ode  to  Despair  "  ;  while  Emmeline  from  time 
to  time  gives  "  vent  to  a  full  heart "  by  weeping 
over  Lady  Adelina's  infant.  Godolphin  sobs 
loudly  when  he  sees  his  frail  sister ;  and  when 
he  meets  Lord  Westhaven  after  an  absence  of 
four  years,  "  the  manly  eyes  of  both  brothers 


78  THE  NOVELIST 

were  filled  with  tears."  We  wonder  how  Scott, 
whose  heroines  cry  so  little  and  whose  heroes 
never  cry  at  all,  stood  all  this  weeping;  and, 
when  we  remember  the  perfunctory  nature  of 
Sir  Walter's  love  scenes,  —  wedged  in  any 
way  among  more  important  matters,  —  we  won 
der  still  more  how  he  endured  the  ravings  of 
Delamere,  or  the  melancholy  verses  with  which 
Godolphin  from  time  to  time  soothes  his  de 
spondent  soul. 

In  deep  depression  sunk,  the  enfeebled  mind 
Will  to  the  deaf  cold  elements  complain ; 
And  tell  the  embosomed  grief,  however  vain, 

To  sullen  surges  and  the  viewless  wind. 

It  was  not,  however,  the  mournfulness  of 
"  Emrneline  "  which  displeased  Miss  Seward, 
but  rather  the  occasional  intrusion  of  "low 
characters  "  ;  of  those  underbred  and  unimpas- 
sioned  persons  who — as  in  Miss  Burney's  and 
Miss  Terrier's  novels  —  are  naturally  and  al 
most  cheerfully  vulgar.  That  Mr.  William 
Hayley,  author  of  "  The  Triumphs  of  Temper," 
and  her  own  most  ardent  admirer,  should  tune 
his  inconstant  lyre  in  praise  of  Mrs.  Smith  was 
more  than  Miss  Seward  could  bear.  "  My  very 


THE  NOVELIST  79 

foes  acquit  me  of  harbouring  one  grain  of  envy 
in  my  bosom,"  she  writes  him  feelingly;  "yet 
it  is  surely  by  no  means  inconsistent  with  that 
exemption  to  feel  a  little  indignant,  and  to 
enter  one's  protest,  when  compositions  of  mere 
mediocrity  are  extolled  far  above  those  of  real 
genius."  She  then  proceeds  to  point  out  the 
"  indelicacy  "  of  Lady  Adelina's  fall  from  grace, 
and  the  use  of  "  kitchen  phrases,"  such  as  "she 
grew  white  at  the  intelligence."  "  White  in 
stead  of  pale,"  comments  Miss  Seward  severely, 
"  I  have  often  heard  servants  say,  but  never  a 
gentleman  or  a  gentlewoman."  If  Mr.  Hay  ley 
desires  to  read  novels,  she  urges  upon  him  the 
charms  of  another  popular  heroine,  Caroline  de 
Lichtfield,  in  whom  he  will  find  "  simplicity, 
wit,  pathos,  and  the  most  exalted  generosity  "  ; 
and  the  history  of  whose  adventures  "makes 
curiosity  gasp,  admiration  kindle,  and  pity  dis 
solve." 

Caroline,  "the  gay  child  of  Artless  Non 
chalance,"  is  at  least  a  more  cheerful  young 
person  than  the  Orphan.  Her  story,  trans 
lated  from  the  French  of  Madame  de  Monto- 
lieu,  was  widely  read  in  England  and  on  the 


80  THE  NOVELIST 

Continent ;  and  Miss  Seward  tells  us  that  its 
author  was  indebted  "to  the  merits  and  graces 
of  these  volumes  for  a  transition  from  incom 
petence  to  the  comforts  of  wealth;  from  the 
unprotected  dependence  of  waning  virginity  to 
the  social  pleasures  of  wedded  friendship."  In 
plain  words,  we  are  given  to  understand  that 
a  rich  and  elderly  German  widower  read  the 
book,  sought  an  acquaintance  with  the  writer, 
and  married  her.  "  Hymen,"  exclaims  Miss 
Seward,  "passed  by  the  fane  of  Cytherea  and 
the  shrine  of  Plutus,  to  light  his  torch  at  the 
altar  of  genius"; — which  beautiful  burst  of 
eloquence  makes  it  painful  to  add  the  chilling 
truth,  and  say  that  "Caroline  de  Lichtfield" 
was  written  six  years  after  its  author's  marriage 
with  M.  de  Montolieu,  who  was  a  Swiss,  and  her 
second  husband.  She  espoused  her  first,  M.  de 
Crousaz,  when  she  was  eighteen,  and  still  com-  t 
fortably  remote  from  the  terrors  of  waning 
virginity.  Accurate  information  was  not,  how 
ever,  a  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  day. 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  writing  some  years  later  of 
Madame  de  Montolieu,  ignores  both  marriages 
altogether,  and  calls  her  Mademoiselle. 


THE  NOVELIST  81 

No  rich  reward  lay  in  wait  for  poor  Char 
lotte  Smith,  whose  husband  was  systematically 
impecunious,  and  whose  large  family  of  children 
were  supported  wholly  by  her  pen.  "  Emme- 
line,  or  the  Orphan  of  the  Castle"  was  followed 
by  "  Ethelinda,  or  the  Recluse  of  the  Lake,"  and 
that  by  "  The  Old  Manor  House,"  which  was 
esteemed  her  masterpiece.  Its  heroine  bears  the 
interesting  name  of  Monimia;  and  when  she 
marries  her  Orlando,  "  every  subsequent  hour 
of  their  lives  was  marked  by  some  act  of 
benevolence,"  —  a  breathless  and  philanthropic 
career.  By  this  time  the  false-hearted  Hayley 
had  so  far  transferred  to  Mrs.  Smith  the  hom 
age  due  to  Miss  Seward  that  he  was  rewarded 
with  the  painful  privilege  of  reading  "  The 
Old  Manor  House"  in  manuscript,  —  a  privi 
lege  reserved  in  those  days  for  tried  and  patient 
friends.  The  poet  had  himself  dallied  a  little 
with  fiction,  having  written,  "  solely  to  promote 
the  interests  of  religion,"  a  novel  called  "The 
Young  Widow,"  which  no  one  appears  to  have 
read,  except  perhaps  the  Archbishop  of  Can 
terbury,  to  whom  its  author  sent  a  copy. 

In  purity  of  motive  Mr.  Hayley  was  rivalled 


82  THE  NOVELIST 

only  by  Mrs.  Brunton,  whose  two  novels,  "  Self- 
Control"  and  "  Discipline,"  were  designed  "to 
procure  admission  for  the  religion  of  a  sound 
mind  and  of  the  Bible  where  it  cannot  find  ac 
cess  in  any  other  form."  Mrs.  Brunton  was  per 
haps  the  most  commended  novelist  of  her  time. 
The  inexorable  titles  of  her  stories  secured  for 
them  a  place  upon  the  guarded  book-shelves  of 
the  young.  Many  a  demure  English  girl  must 
have  blessed  these  deluding  titles,  just  as,  forty 
years  later,  many  an  English  boy  blessed  the 
inspiration  which  had  impelled  George  Borrow 
to  misname  his  immortal  book  "  The  Bible  in 
Spain."  When  the  wife  of  a  clergyman  under 
took  to  write  a  novel  in  the  interests  of  reli 
gion  and  the  Scriptures;  when  she  called  it 
"  Discipline,"  and  drew  up  a  stately  apology 
for  employing  fiction  as  a  medium  for  the  les 
sons  she  meant  to  convey,  what  parent  could 
refuse  to  be  beguiled  ?  There  is  nothing  trivial 
in  Mrs.  Brunton's  conception  of  a  good  novel, 
in  the  standard  she  proposes  to  the  world. 

"Let  the  admirable  construction  of  fable  in 
4  Tom  Jones '  be  employed  to  unfold  characters 
like  Miss  Edge  worth's;  let  it  lead  to  a  moral 


THE  NOVELIST  83 

like  Eichardson's ;  let  it  be  told  with  the  ele 
gance  of  Rousseau,  and  with  the  simplicity  of 
Goldsmith ;  let  it  be  all  this,  and  Milton  need 
not  have  been  ashamed  of  the  work." 

How  far  "  Discipline  "  and  "  Self-Control " 
approach  this  composite  standard  of  perfection 
it  would  be  invidious  to  ask ;  but  they  accom 
plished  a  miracle  of  their  own  in  being  both 
popular  and  permitted,  in  pleasing  the  frivo 
lous,  and  edifying  the  devout.  Dedicated  to 
Miss  Joanna  Baillie,  sanctioned  by  Miss  Han 
nah  More,  they  stood  above  reproach,  though 
not  without  a  flavour  of  depravity.  Mrs.  Brun- 
ton's  outlook  upon  life  was  singularly  uncom 
plicated.  All  her  women  of  fashion  are  heart 
less  and  inane.  All  her  men  of  fashion  cherish 
dishonourable  designs  upon  female  youth  and 
innocence.  Indeed  the  strenuous  efforts  of 
Laura,  in  "  Self-Control,"  to  preserve  her  vir 
ginity  may  be  thought  a  trifle  explicit  for  very 
youthful  readers.  We  find  her  in  the  first 
chapter  —  she  is  seventeen  —  fainting  at  the 
feet  of  her  lover,  who  has  just  revealed  the  un 
worthy  nature  of  his  intentions  ;  and  we  follow 
her  through  a  series  of  swoons  to  the  last  pages, 


84  THE  NOVELIST 

where  she  "  sinks  senseless "  into  —  of  all  ves 
sels  !  — a  canoe ;  and  is  carried  many  miles  down 
a  Canadian  river  in  a  state  of  nicely  balanced 
unconsciousness.  Her  self-control  (the  crown 
ing  virtue  which  gives  its  title  to  the  book)  is 
so  marked  that  when  she  dismisses  Hargrave 
on  probation,  and  then  meets  him  accidentally 
in  a  London  print-shop  after  a  four  months' 
absence,  she  "  neither  screamed  nor  fainted  "  ; 
only  "  trembled  violently,  and  leant  against  the 
counter  to  recover  strength  and  composure." 
It  is  not  until  he  turns,  and,  "  regardless  of  the 
inquisitive  looks  of  the  spectators,  clasped  her 
to  his  breast,"  that  "  her  head  sunk  upon  his 
shoulder,  and  she  lost  all  consciousness."  As 
for  her  heroic  behaviour  when  the  same  Har 
grave  (having  lapsed  from  grace)  shoots  the 
virtuous  De  Courcy  in  Lady  Pelhain's  summer- 
house,  it  must  be  described  in  the  author's  own 
words.  No  others  could  do  it  justice. 

"  To  the  plants  which  their  beauty  had  recom 
mended  to  Lady  Pelham,  Laura  had  added  a 
few  of  which  the  usefulness  was  known  to  her. 
Agaric  of  the  oak  was  of  the  number  ;  and  she 
had  often  applied  it  where  many  a  hand  less 


THE  NOVELIST  85 

fair  would  have  shrunk  from  the  task.  Nor  did 
she  hesitate  now.  The  ball  had  entered  near 
the  neck  ;  and  the  feminine,  the  delicate  Laura 
herself  disengaged  the  wound  from  its  covering ; 
the  feeling,  the  tender  Laura  herself  performed 
an  office  from  which  false  sensibility  would  have 
recoiled  in  horror." 

Is  it  possible  that  anybody  except  Miss  Bur- 
ney  could  have  shrunk  modestly  from  the  sight 
of  a  lover's  neck,  especially  when  it  had  a  bullet 
in  it?  Could  a  sense  of  decorum  be  more  over 
whelmingly  expressed?  Yet  the  same  novel  ' 
which  held  up  to  our  youthful  great-grand 
mothers  this  unapproachable  standard  of  pro 
priety  presented  to  their  consideration  the  most 
intimate  details  of  libertinism.  There  was  then, 
as  now,  no  escape  from  the  moralist's  devas 
tating  disclosures. 

One  characteristic  is  common  to  all  these 
faded  romances,  which  in  their  time  were  read 
with  far  more  fervour  and  sympathy  than  are 
their  successors  to-day.  This  is  the  undying  and 
undeviating  nature  of  their  heroes'  affections. 
Written  by  ladies  who  took  no  count  of  man's 
proverbial  inconstancy,  they  express  a  touching 


86  THE  NOVELIST 

belief  in  the  supremacy  of  feminine  charms.  A 
heroine  of  seventeen  (she  is  seldom  older),  with 
ringlets,  and  a  "  faltering  timidity,"  inflames 
both  the  virtuous  and  the  profligate  with  such 
imperishable  passions,  that  when  triumphant 
morality  leads  her  to  the  altar,  defeated  vice 
cannot  survive  her  loss.  Her  suitors,  reversing 
the  enviable  experience  of  Ben  Bolt,— 

weep  with  delight  when  she  gives  them  a  smile, 
And  tremble  with  fear  at  her  frown. 

They  grow  faint  with  rapture  when  they  enter 
her  presence,  and,  when  she  repels  their  ad 
vances,  they  signify  their  disappointment  by 
gnashing  their  teeth,  and  beating  their  heads 
against  the  wall.  Rejection  cannot  alienate  their 
faithful  hearts  ;  years  and  absence  cannot  chill 
their  fervour.  They  belong  to  a  race  of  men 
who,  if  they  ever  existed  at  all,  are  now  as 
extinct  as  the  mastodon. 

It  was  Miss  Jane  Porter  who  successfully 
transferred  to  a  conquering  hero  that  exquisite 
sensibility  of  soul  which  had  erstwhile  belonged 
to  the  conquering  heroine,  —  to  the  Emmelines 
and  Adelinas  of  fiction.  Dipping  her  pen  "  in 
the  tears  of  Poland,"  she  conveyed  the  glitter- 


THE  NOVELIST  87 

ing  drops  to  the  eyes  of  "  Thaddeus  of  War 
saw,"  whence  they  gush  in  rills,  —  like  those  of 
the  Prisoner  of  Chillon's  brother.  Thaddeus  is  of 
such  exalted  virtue  that  strangers  in  London  ad 
dress  him  as  "  excellent  young  gentleman,"  and 
his  friends  speak  of  him  as  "  incomparable  young 
man."  He  rescues  children  from  horses'  hoofs 
and  from  burning  buildings.  He  nurses  them 
through  small-pox,  and  leaves  their  bedsides 
in  the  most  casual  manner,  to  mingle  in  crowds 
and  go  to  the  play.  He  saves  women  from  in 
sult  on  the  streets.  He  is  kind  even  to  "  that 
poor  slandered  and  abused  animal,  the  cat,"- 
which  is  certainly  to  his  credit.  Wrapped  in  a 
sable  cloak,  wearing  "  hearse-like  plumes  "  on 
his  hat,  a  star  upon  his  breast,  and  a  sabre  by 
his  side,  he  moves  with  Hamlet's  melancholy 
grace  through  the  five  hundred  pages  of  the 
story.  "  His  unrestrained  and  elegant  conversa 
tion  acquired  new  pathos  from  the  anguish  that 
was  driven  back  to  his  heart:  like  the  beds  of 
rivers  which  infuse  their  own  nature  with  the 
current,  his  hidden  grief  imparted  an  indescrib 
able  interest  and  charm  to  all  his  sentiments 
and  actions." 


88  THE  NOVELIST 

What  wonder  that  such  a  youth  is  passion 
ately  loved  by  all  the  women  who  cross  his  path, 
but  whom  he  regards  for  the  most  part  with 
"that  lofty  tranquillity  which  is  inseparable 
from  high  rank  when  it  is  accompanied  by  vir 
tue."  In  vain  Miss  Euphemia  Dundas  writes 
him  amorous  notes,  and  entraps  him  into  em 
barrassing  situations.  In  vain  Lady  Sara  Roos 
-  married,  I  regret  to  say  —  pursues  him  to 
his  lodgings,  and  wrings  "  her  snowy  arms  " 
while  she  confesses  the  hopeless  nature  of  her 
infatuation.   The  irreproachable  Thaddeus  re 
places  her  tenderly  but  firmly  on  a  sofa,  and 
as  soon  as  possible  sends  her  home  in  a  cab.  It 
is  only  when  the  "  orphan  heiress,"  Miss  Beau 
fort,  makes  her  appearance  on  the  scene,  "a 
large  Turkish  shawl  enveloping  her  fine  form, 
a  modest  grace  observable  in  every  limb,''  that 
the  exile's  haughty  soul  succumbs  to  love.  Miss 
Beaufort  has  been  admirably  brought  up  by  her 
aunt,  Lady  Somerset,  who  is  a  person  of  great 
distinction,  and  who  gives  "  conversaziones," 
as  famous  in  their  way  as  Mrs.  Proudie's.  - 
"There  the  young  Mary  Beaufort  listened  to 
pious   divines  of  every   Christian  persuasion. 


THE  NOVELIST  89 

There  she  gathered  wisdom  from  real  philoso 
phers  ;  and,  in  the  society  of  our  best  living 
poets,  cherished  an  enthusiasm  for  all  that  is 
great  and  good.  On  these  evenings,  Sir  Rob 
ert  Somerset's  house  reminded  the  visitor  of 
what  he  had  read  or  imagined  of  the  School  of 
Athens." 

Never  do  hero  and  heroine  approach  each 
other  with  such  spasms  of  modesty  as  Thaddeus 
and  Miss  Beaufort.  Their  hearts  expand  with 
emotion,  but  their  mutual  sense 'of  propriety 
keeps  them  remote  from  all  vulgar  under 
standings.  In  vain  "  Mary's  rosy  lips  seemed  to 
breathe  balm  while  she  spoke."  In  vain  "  her 
beautiful  eyes  shone  with  benevolence."  The 
exile,  standing  proudly  aloof,  watches  with  bit 
ter  composure  the  attentions  of  more  frivolous 
suitors.  "  His  arms  were  folded,  his  hat  pulled 
over  his  forehead ;  and  his  long  dark  eye-lashes 
shading  his  downcast  eyes  imparted  a  dejection 
to  his  whole  air,  which  wrapped  her  weeping 
heart  round  and  round  with  regretful  pangs." 
What  with  his  lashes,  and  his  hidden  griefs, 
the  majesty  of  his  mournful  moods,  and  the 
pleasing  pensiveness  of  his  lighter  ones,  Thad- 


90  THE  NOVELIST 

deus  so  far  eclipses  his  English  rivals  that  they 
may  be  pardoned  for  wishing  he  had  kept  his 
charms  in  Poland.  Who  that  has  read  the 
matcliless  paragraph  which  describes  the  first 
unveiling  of  the  hero's  symmetrical  leg  can  for 
get  the  sensation  it  produces? 

"  Owing  to  the  warmth  of  the  weather,  Thad- 
deus  came  out  this  morning  without  boots ;  and 
it  being  the  first  time  the  exquisite  proportion 
of  his  limb  had  been  seen  by  any  of  the  present 
company  excepting  Eupheinia"  (why  had  Eu- 
phemia  been  so  favoured?),  uLascelles,  burst 
ing  with  an  emotion  which  he  would  not  call 
envy,  measured  the  count's  fine  leg  with  his 
scornful  eye.'* 

When  Thaddeus  at  last  expresses  his  attach 
ment  for  Miss  Beaufort,  he  does  so  kneeling  re 
spectfully  in  her  uncle's  presence,  and  in  these 
well-chosen  words :  "  Dearest  Miss  Beaufort, 
may  I  indulge  myself  in  the  idea  that  I  am 
blessed  with  your  esteem  ?  "  Whereupon  Mary 
whispers  to  Sir  Robert:  "Pray,  Sir,  desire 
him  to  rise.  I  am  already  sufficiently  over 
whelmed!  "  and  the  solemn  deed  is  done. 

"  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw  "  may  be  called  the 


THE  NOVELIST  91 

"  Last  of  the  Heroes,"  and  take  rank  with  the 
"  Last  of  the  Mohicans,"  the  "  Last  of  the 
Barons,"  the  "  Last  of  the  Cavaliers,"  and  all 
the  finalities  of  fiction.  With  him  died  that 
noble  race  who  expressed  our  great-grand 
mothers'  artless  ideals  of  perfection.  Seventy 
years  later,  D'Israeli  made  a  desperate  effort 
to  revive  a  pale  phantom  of  departed  glory 
in  "  Lothair,"  that  nursling  of  the  gods,  who 
is  emphatically  a  hero,  and  nothing  more. 
"London,"  we  are  gravely  told,  "was  at  Lo 
thair 's  feet."  He  is  at  once  the  hope  of  United 
Italy,  and  the  bulwark  of  the  English  Estab 
lishment.  He  is  — at  twenty-two  —  the  pivot 
of  fashionable,  political,  and  clerical  diplo 
macy.  He  is  beloved  by  the  female  aristocracy 
of  Great  Britain  ;  and  mysterious  ladies,  whose 
lofty  souls  stoop  to  no  conventionalities,  die 
happy  with  his  kisses  on  their  lips.  Five  hun 
dred  mounted  gentlemen  compose  his  simple 
country  escort,  and  the  coat  of  his  groom  of 
the  chambers  is  made  in  Saville  Eow.  What 
more  could  a  hero  want  ?  What  more  could  be 
lavished  upon  him  by  the  most  indulgent  of 
authors?  Yet  who  shall  compare  Lothair  to 


92  THE  NOVELIST 

the  noble  Thadcleus  nodding  his  hearse-like 
plumes, — Thaddeus  dedicated  to  the  "urban 
ity  of  the  brave,"  and  embalmed  in  the  tears  of 
Poland?  The  inscrutable  creator  of  Lothair 
presented  his  puppet  to  a  mocking  world ;  but 
all  England  and  much  of  the  Continent  dilated 
with  correct  emotions  when  Thaddeus,  "  uniting 
to  the  courage  of  a  man  the  sensibility  of  a 
woman,  and  the  exalted  goodness  of  an  angel " 
(I  quote  from  an  appreciative  critic),  knelt  at 
Miss  Beaufort's  feet. 

Ten  years  later  "  Pride  and  Prejudice  "  made 
its  unobtrusive  appearance,  and  was  read  by 
that  "  saving  remnant "  to  whom  is  confided 
the  intellectual  welfare  of  their  land.  Mrs.  El- 
wood,  the  biographer  of  England's  "  Literary 
Ladies,"  tells  us,  in  the  few  careless  pages 
which  she  deems  sufficient  for  Miss  Austen's 
novels,  that  there  are  people  who  think  these 
stories  "  worthy  of  ranking  with  those  of  Ma 
dame  d'Arblay  and  Miss  Edgeworth"  ;  but  that 
in  their  author's  estimation  (and,  by  inference, 
in  her  own),  "  they  took  up  a  much  more  hum 
ble  station."  Yet,  tolerant  even  of  such  infer 
iority,  Mrs.  Elwood  bids  us  remember  that  aL 


THE  NOVELIST  93 

though  "  the  character  of  Emma  is  perhaps  too 
manoeuvring  and  too  plotting  to  be  perfectly 
amiable,"  that  of  Catherine  Morland  "  will  not 
suffer  greatly  even  from  a  comparison  with 
Miss  Burney's  interesting  Evelina  "  ;  and  that 
"  although  one  is  occasionally  annoyed  by  the 
underbred  personages  of  Miss  Austen's  novels, 
the  annoyance  is  only  such  as  we  should  feel  if 
we  were  actually  in  their  company." 

It  was  thus  that  our  genteel  great-grand 
mothers,  enamoured  of  lofty  merit  and  of  re 
fined  sensibility,  regarded  Elizabeth  Bennet's 
relations. 


ON  THE  SLOPES   OF  PARNASSUS 

Perhaps  no  man  ever  thought  a  line  superfluous  when 
he  wrote  it.  We  are  seldom  tiresome  to  ourselves.  —  DB. 
JOHNSON. 

IT  is  commonly  believed  that  the  extinction  of 
verse  —  of  verse  in  the  bulk,  which  is  the  way 
in  which  our  great-grandfathers  consumed  it 
—  is  due  to  the  vitality  of  the  novel.  People, 
we  are  told,  read  rhyme  and  metre  with  docil 
ity,  only  because  they  wanted  to  hear  a  story, 
only  because  there  was  no  other  way  in  which 
they  could  get  plenty  of  sentiment  and  ro 
mance.  As  soon  as  the  novel  supplied  them 
with  all  the  sentiment  they  wanted,  as  soon  as 
it  told  them  the  story  in  plain  prose,  they 
turned  their  backs  upon  poetry  forever. 

There  is  a  transparent  inadequacy  in  this 
solution  of  a  problem  which  still  confronts  the 
patient  reader  of  buried  masterpieces.  Novels 
were  plenty  when  Mr.  William  Hayley's 
"Triumphs  of  Temper"  went  through  twelve 
editions,  and  when  Dr.  Darwin's  "Botanic 
Garden "  was  received  with  deferential  de- 


ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS       95 

light.  But  could  any  dearth  of  fiction  per 
suade  us  now  to  read  the  "  Botanic  Garden"  ? 
Were  we  shipwrecked  in  company  with  the 
"  Triumphs  of  Temper,"  would  we  ever  finish 
the  first  canto  ?  Novels  stood  on  every  English 
book-shelf  when  Fox  read  "  Madoc  "  aloud  at 
night  to  his  friends,  and  they  stayed  up,  so  he 
says,  an  hour  after  their  bedtime  to  hear  it. 
Could  that  miracle  be  worked  to-day?  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  with  indestructible  amiability, 
reread  "  Madoc  "  to  please  Miss  Seward,  who, 
having  "  steeped  "  her  own  eyes  "  in  transports 
of  tears  and  sympathy,"  wrote  to  him  that  it 
carried  "  a  master-key  to  every  bosom  which 
common  good  sense  and  anything  resembling 
a  human  heart  inhabit."  Scott,  unwilling  to 
resign  all  pretensions  to  a  human  heart,  tried 
hard  to  share  the  Swan's  emotions,  and  failed. 
"  I  cannot  feel  quite  the  interest  I  would  like 
to  do,"  he  patiently  confessed. 

If  Southey's  poems  were  not  read  as  Scott's 
and  Moore's  and  Byron's  were  read  (give  us 
another  Byron,  and  we  will  read  him  with  forty 
thousand  novels  knocking  at  our  doors !  )  ;  if 
they  were  not  paid  for  out  of  the  miraculous 


96       ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS 

depths  of  Murray's  Fortunatus's  purse,  they 
nevertheless  enjoyed  a  solid  reputation  of  their 
own.  They  are  mentioned  in  all  the  letters  of 
the  period  (save  and  except  Lord  Byron's 
ribald  pages)  with  carefully  measured  praise, 
and  they  enabled  their  author  to  accept  the 
laureateship  on  self-respecting  terms.  They  are 
at  least,  as  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  reminds  us,  more 
readable  than  Glover's  "Leonidas,"  or  Wilkie's 
"  Epigoniad,"  and  they  are  shorter,  too.  Yet 
the  "  Leonidas,"  an  epic  in  nine  books,  went 
through  four  editions ;  whereupon  its  elate 
author  expanded  it  into  twelve  books ;  and  the 
public,  undaunted,  kept  on  buying  it  for  years. 
The  "  Epigoniad"  is  also  in  nine  books.  It  is 
on  record  that  Hume,  who  seldom  dallied  with 
the  poets,  read  all  nine,  and  praised  them 
warmly.  Mr.  Wilkie  was  christened  the  "  Scot 
tish  Homer,"  and  he  bore  that  modest  title 
until  his  death.  It  was  the  golden  age  of  epics. 
The  ultimatum  of  the  modern  publisher,  "  No 
poet  need  apply ! "  had  not  yet  blighted  the 
hopes  and  dimmed  the  lustre  of  genius.  "  Every 
body  thinks  he  can  write  verse,"  observed  Sir 
Walter  mournfully,  when  called  upon  for  the 


ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS       97 

hundredth  time  to  help  a  budding  aspirant  to 
fame. 

With  so  many  competitors  in  the  field,  it 
was  uncommonly  astute  in  Mr.  Hayley  to 
address  himself  exclusively  to  that  sex  which 
poets  and  orators  call  "  fair."  There  is  a 
formal  playfulness,  a  ponderous  vivacity  about 
the  "Triumphs  of  Temper,"  which  made  it 
especially  welcome  to  women.  In  the  preface 
of  the  first  edition  the  author  gallantly  laid 
his  laurels  at  their  feet,  observing  modestly 
that  it  was  his  desire,  however  "ineffectual," 
"to  unite  the  sportive  wildness  of  Ariosto  and 
the  more  serious  sublime  painting  of  Dante 
with  some  portion  of  the  enchanting  elegance, 
the  refined  imagination,  and  the  moral  graces 
of  Pope;  and  to  do  this,  if  possible,  without 
violating  those  rules  of  propriety  which  Mr. 
Cambridge  has  illustrated,  by  example  as  well 
as  by  precept,  in  the  '  Scribleriad,'  and  in  his 
sensible  preface  to  that  elegant  and  learned 
poem." 

Accustomed  as  we  are  to  the  confusions  of 
literary  perspective,  this  grouping  of  Dante, 
Ariosto,  and  Mr.  Cambridge  does  seem  a  trifle 


98       ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS 

foreshortened.  But  our  ancestors  had  none 
of  that  sensitive  shrinking  from  comparisons 
which  is  so  characteristic  of  our  timid  and 
thin-skinned  generation.  They  did  not  edge 
off  from  the  immortals,  afraid  to  breathe  their 
names  lest  it  be  held  lese-majeste ;  they  used 
them  as  the  common  currency  of  criticism. 
Why  should  not  Mr.  Ilayley  have  challenged 
a  contrast  with  Dante  and  Ariosto,  when  Miss 
Seward  assured  her  little  world  —  which  was 
also  Mr.  Hayley's  world  —  that  he  had  the 
"wit  and  ease"  of  Prior,  a  "more  varied  ver 
sification"  than  Pope,  and  "the  fire  and  the 
invention  of  Dryden,  without  any  of  Dryden's 
absurdity  "  ?  Why  should  he  have  questioned 
her  judgment,  when  she  wrote  to  him  that 
Cowper's  "  Task  "  would  "  please  and  instruct 
the  race  of  common  readers,"  who  could  not 
rise  to  the  beauties  of  Akenside,  or  Mason,  or 
Milton,  or  of  his  (Mr.  Hayley's)  "  exquisite 
'Triumphs  of  Temper'"?  There  was  a  time, 
indeed,  when  she  sorrowed  lest  his  "  inventive, 
classical,  and  elegant  muse "  should  be  "  de 
plorably  infected"  by  the  growing  influence 
of  Wordsworth ;  but,  that  peril  past,  he  rose 


ON  THE   SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS       99 

again,  the  bright  particular  star  of  a  wide 
feminine  horizon. 

Mr.  Hayley's  didacticism  is  admirably 
adapted  to  his  readers.  The  men  of  the 
eighteenth  century  were  not  expected  to  keep 
their  tempers;  it  was  the  sweet  prerogative  of 
wives  and  daughters  to  smooth  the  roughened 
current  of  family  life.  Accordingly  the  heroine 
of  the  "Triumphs,"  being  bullied  by  her  father, 
a  fine  old  gentleman  of  the  Squire  Western  type, 
maintains  a  superhuman  cheerfulness,  gives 
up  the  ball  for  which  she  is  already  dressed, 
wreathes  her  countenance  in  smiles,  and 

with  sportive  ease, 
Prest  her  Piano-forte's  favourite  keys. 

The  men  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  all 
hard  drinkers.  Therefore  Mr.  Hayley  conjures 
the  "  gentle  fair  "  to  avoid  even  the  mild  de 
bauchery  of  siruped  fruits,  — 

For  the  sly  fiend,  of  every  art  possest, 
Steals  on  th'  affection  of  her  female  guest ; 
And,  by  her  soft  address,  seducing  each, 
Eager  she  plies  them  with  a  brandy  peach. 
They  with  keen  lip  the  luscious  fruit  devour, 
But  swiftly  feel  its  peace-destroying  power. 
Quick  through  each  vein  new  tides  of  frenzy  roll, 
All  evil  passions  kindle  in  the  soul ; 


100     ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS 

Drive  from  each  feature  every  cheerful  grace, 
And'glare  ferocious  in  the  sallow  face  ; 
The  wounded  nerves  in  furious  conflict  tear, 
Then  sink  in  blank  dejection  and  despair. 

All  this  combustle,  to  use  Gray's  favourite  word, 
about  a  brandy  peach  !  But  women  have  ever 
loved  to  hear  their  little  errors  magnified.  In 
the  matter  of  poets,  preachers  and  confessors, 
they  are  sure  to  choose  the  denunciatory. 

Dr.  Darwin,  as  became  a  scientist  and  a 
sceptic,  addressed  his  ponderous  "  Botanic 
Garden  "  to  male  readers.  It  is  true  that  he 
offers  much  good  advice  to  women,  urging 
upon  them  especially  those  duties  and  devo 
tions  from  which  he,  as  a  man,  was  exempt. 
It  is  true  also  that  when  he  first  contemplated 
writing  his  epic,  he  asked  Miss  Seward — so, 
at  least,  she  said — to  be  his  collaborator;  an 
honour  which  she  modestly  declined,  as  not 
"  strictly  proper  for  a  female  pen."  But  the 
peculiar  solidity,  the  encyclopaedic  qualities  of 
this  masterpiece,  fitted  it  for  such  grave  stu 
dents  as  Mr.  Edgeworth,  who  loved  to  be 
amply  instructed.  It  is  a  poem  replete  with 
information,  and  information  of  that  discon- 


t 

ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS      101 

nected  order  in  which  the  Edgeworthian  soul 
took  true  delight.  We  are  told,  not  only  about 
flowers  and  vegetables,  but  about  electric  fishes, 
and  the  salt  mines  of  Poland;  about  Dr.  Frank 
lin's  lightning  rod,  and  Mrs.  Darner's  bust  of 
the  Duchess  of  Devonshire;  about  the  treat 
ment  of  paralytics,  and  the  mechanism  of  the 
common  pump.  We  pass  from  the  death  of 
General  Wolfe  at  Quebec  to  the  equally  la 
mented  demise  of  a  lady  botanist  at  Derby. 
We  turn  from  the  contemplation  of  Hannibal 
crossing  the  Alps  to  consider  the  charities  of 
a  benevolent  young  woman  named  Jones. 

Sound,  Nymphs  of  Helicon !  the  trump  of  Fame, 
And  teach  Hibernian  echoes  Jones's  name ; 
Bind  round  her  polished  brow  the  civic  bay, 
And  drag  the  fair  Philanthropist  to  day. 

Pagan  divinities  disport  themselves  on  one  page, 
and  Christian  saints  on  another.  St.  Anthony 
preaches,  not  to  the  little  fishes  of  the  brooks 
and  streams,  but  to  the  monsters  of  the  deep, 
—  sharks,  porpoises,  whales,  seals  and  dol 
phins,  that  assemble  in  a  sort  of  aquatic  camp- 
meeting  on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  and  "get 
religion  "  in  the  true  revivalist  spirit. 


102     ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS 

The  listening  shoals  the  quick  contagion  feel, 
Pant  on  the  floods,  inebriate  with  their  zeal ; 
Ope  their  wide  jaws,  and  bow  their  slimy  heads, 
And  dash  with  frantic  fins  their  foamy  beds. 

For  a  freethinker,  Dr.  Darwin  is  curiously 
literal  in  his  treatment  of  hagiology  and  the 
Scriptures.  His  Nebuchadnezzar  (introduced  as 
an  illustration  of  the  "  Loves  of  the  Plants  ") 
is  not  a  bestialized  mortal,  but  a  veritable  beast, 
like  one  of  Circe's  swine,  only  less  easily  classi 
fied  in  natural  history. 

Long  eagle  plumes  his  arching  neck  invest, 

Steal  round  his  arras  and  clasp  his  sharpened  breast ; 

Dark  brindled  hairs  in  bristling  ranks  behind, 

Ilise  o'er  his  back  and  rustle  in  the  wind ; 

Clothe  his  lank  sides,  his  shrivelled  limbs  surround, 

And  human  hands  with  talons  print  the  ground. 

Lolls  his  red  tongue,  and  from  the  reedy  side 

Of  slow  Euphrates  laps  the  muddy  tide. 

Silent,  in  shining  troups,  the  Courtier  throng 

Pursue  their  monarch  as  he  crawls  along ; 

E'en  Beauty  pleads  in  vain  with  smiles  and  tears. 

Not  Flattery's  self  can  pierce  his  pendant  ears. 

The  picture  of  the  embarrassed  courtiers  pro 
menading  slowly  after  this  royal  phenomenon, 
and  of  the  lovely  inconsiderates  proffering  their 
vain  allurements,  is  so  ludicrous  as  to  be  pain 
ful.  Even  Miss  Seward,  who  held  that  the 


ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS      103 

"Botanic  Garden  "  combined  "the  sublimity  of 
Michael  Angelo,  the  correctness  and  elegance 
of  Kaphael,  with  the  glow  of  Titian,"  was 
shocked  by  Nebuchadnezzar's  pendant  ears,  and 
admitted  that  the  passage  was  likely  to  provoke 
inconsiderate  laughter. 

The  first  part  of  Dr.  Darwin's  poem,  "  The 
Economy  of  Vegetation,"  was  warmly  praised 
by  critics  and  reviewers.  Its  name  alone  se 
cured  for  it  esteem.  A  few  steadfast  souls,  like 
Mrs.  Schimmelpenninck,  refused  to  accept  even 
vegetation  from  a  sceptic's  hands ;  but  it  was 
generally  conceded  that  the  poet  had  "  entwined 
the  Parnassian  laurel  with  the  balm  of  Phar 
macy"  in  a  very  creditable  manner.  The  last 
four  cantos,  however,  —  indiscreetly  entitled 
"The  Loves  of  the  Plants," — awakened  grave 
concern.  They  were  held  unfit  for  female  youth, 
which,  being  then  taught  driblets  of  science  in 
a  guarded  and  muffled  fashion,  was  not  sup 
posed  to  know  that  flowers  had  any  sex,  much 
less  that  they  practised  polygamy.  The  glar 
ing  indiscretion  of  their  behaviour  in  the  "  Bo 
tanic  Garden,"  their  seraglios,  their  amorous 
embraces  and  involuntary  libertinism,  offended 


104     ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS 

British  decorum,  and,  what  was  worse,  exposed 
the  poem  to  Canning's  pungent  ridicule.  When 
the  "  Loves  of  the  Triangles  "  appeared  in  the 
"  Anti- Jacobin,"  all  England  —  except  Whigs 
and  patriots  who  never  laughed  at  Canning's 
jokes  —  was  moved  to  inextinguishable  mirth. 
The  mock  seriousness  of  the  introduction  and 
argument,  the  "horrid  industry"  of  the  notes, 
the  contrast  between  the  pensiveness  of  the  Cy 
cloid  and  the  innocent  playfulness  of  the  Pen 
dulum,  the  solemn  headshake  over  the  licen 
tious  disposition  of  Optics,  and  the  description 
of  the  three  Curves  that  requite  the  passion  of 
the  Rectangle,  all  burlesque  with  unfeeling 
delight  Dr.  Darwin's  ornate  pedantry. 

Let  shrill  Acoustics  tune  the  tin}'  lyre, 
With  Euclid  sage  fair  Algebra  conspire ; 
Let  Hydrostatics,  simpering-  as  they  go, 
Lead  the  light  Naiads  on  fantastic  toe. 

The  indignant  poet,  frigidly  vain,  and  im 
maculately  free  from  any  taint  of  humour,  was 
as  much  scandalized  as  hurt  by  this  light-hearted 
mockery.  Being  a  dictator  in  his  own  little 
circle  at  Derby,  he  was  naturally  disposed  to 
consider  the  "  Anti-Jacobin  "  a  menace  to  genius 


ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS     105 

and  to  patriotism.  His  criticisms  and  his  pre 
scriptions  had  hitherto  been  received  with  equal 
submission.  When  he  told  his  friends  that 
Akenside  was  a  better  poet  than  Milton,  — 
"  more  polished,  pure,  and  dignified,"  they  lis 
tened  with  respect.  When  he  told  his  patients 
to  eat  acid  fruits  with  plenty  of  sugar  and 
cream,  they  obeyed  with  alacrity.  He  had  a 
taste  for  inventions,  and  first  made  Mr.  Edge- 
worth's  acquaintance  by  showing  him  an  in 
genious  carriage  of  his  own  contrivance,  which 
was  designed  to  facilitate  the  movements  of  the 
horse,  and  enable  it  to  turn  with  ease.  The 
fact  that  Dr.  Darwin  was  three  times  thrown 
from  this  vehicle,  and  that  the  third  accident 
lamed  him  for  life,  in  no  way  disconcerted  the 
inventor  or  his  friends,  who  loved  mechanism 
for  its  own  sake,  and  apart  from  any  given  re 
sults.  Dr.  Darwin  defined  a  fool  as  one  who 
never  in  his  life  tried  an  experiment.  So  did 
Mr.  Day,  of  "  Sandford  and  Merton "  fame, 
who  experimented  in  the  training  of  animals, 
and  was  killed  by  an  active  young  colt  that  had 
failed  to  grasp  the  system. 

The  "  Botanic  Garden  "  was  translated  into 


106     ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS 

French,  Italian,  and  Portuguese,  to  the  great 
relief  of  Miss  Seward,  who  hated  to  think  that 
the  immortality  of  such  a  work  depended  upon 
the  preservation  of  a  single  tongue.  "  Should 
that  tongue  perish,"  she  wrote  proudly,  "  trans 
lations  would  at  least  retain  all  the  host  of 
beauties  which  do  not  depend  upon  felicities 
of  verbal  expression." 

If  the  interminable  epics  which  were  so 
popular  in  these  halcyon  days  had  condescended 
to  the  telling  of  stories,  we  might  believe  that 
they  were  read,  or  at  least  occasionally  read,  as 
a  substitute  for  prose  fiction.  But  the  truth  is 
that  most  of  them  are  solid  treatises  on  moral 
ity,  or  agriculture,  or  therapeutics,  cast  into 
the  blankest  of  blank  verse,  and  valued,  pre 
sumably,  for  the  sake  of  the  information  they 
conveyed.  Their  very  titles  savour  of  statement 
rather  than  of  inspiration.  Nobody  in  search 
of  romance  would  take  up  Dr.  Grainger's 
"Sugar  Cane,"  or  Dyer's  "Fleece,"  or  the 
Eev.  Richard  Polwhele's  "English  Orator." 
Nobody  desiring  to  be  idly  amused  would  read 
the  "Vales  of  Weaver,"  or  a  long  didactic 
poem  on  "  The  Influence  of  Local  Attach- 


ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS      107 

ment."  It  was  not  because  he  felt  himself  to 
be  a  poet  that  Dr.  Grainger  wrote  the  "  Sugar 
Cane  "  in  verse,  but  because  that  was  the  form 
most  acceptable  to  the  public.  The  ever  famous 
line, 

"  Now  Muse,  let 's  sing  of  rats  !  " 

which  made  merry  Sir  Joshua  Keynolds  and 
his  friends,  is  indicative  of  the  good  doctor's 
struggles  to  employ  an  uncongenial  medium, 
lie  wanted  to  tell  his  readers  how  to  farm  suc 
cessfully  in  the  West  Indies  ;  how  to  keep  well 
in  a  treacherous  climate ;  what  food  to  eat,  what 
drugs  to  take,  how  to  look  after  the  physical 
condition  of  negro  servants,  and  guard  them 
from  prevalent  maladies.  These  were  matters 
on  which  the  author  was  qualified  to  speak,  and 
on  which  he  does  speak  with  all  a  physician's 
frankness ;  but  they  do  not  lend  themselves  to 
lofty  strains.  Whole  pages  of  the  "  Sugar 
Cane "  read  like  prescriptions  and  dietaries 
done  into  verse.  It  is  as  difficult  to  sing 
with  dignity  about  a  disordered  stomach  as 
about  rats  and  cockroaches;  and  Dr.  Grain- 
ger's  determination  to  leave  nothing  untold 
leads  him  to  dwell  with  much  feeling,  but 


108     ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS 

little  grace,  on  all  the  disadvantages  of  the 
tropics. 

Musquitoes,  sand-flies,  seek  the  sheltered  roof, 
•  And  with  fell  rage  the  stranger  guest  assail, 
Nor  spare  the  sportive  child  ;  from  their  retreats 
Cockroaches  crawl  displeasingly  abroad. 

The  truthfulness  and  sobriety  of  this  last  line 
deserve  commendation.  Cockroaches  in  the 
open  are  displeasing  to  sensitive  souls ;  and  a 
footnote,  half  a  page  long,  tells  us  everything 
we  could  possibly  desire  —  or  fear  —  to  know 
about  these  insects.  As  an  example  of  Dr. 
Grainger's  thoroughness  in  the  treatment  of 
such  themes,  I  quote  with  delight  his  approved 
method  of  poisoning  alligators. 

With  Misnian  arsenic,  deleterious  bane, 

Pound  up  the  ripe  cassada's  well-rasped  root, 

And  form  in  pellets ;  these  profusely  spread 

Round  the  Cane-groves  where  skulk  the  vermin-breed. 

They,  greedy,  and  unweeting  of  the  bait, 

Crowd  to  the  inviting  cates,  and  swift  devour 

Their  palatable  Death  ;  for  soon  they  seek 

The  neighbouring  spring ;  and  drink,  and  swell,  and  die. 

Then  follow  some  very  sensible  remarks  about 
the  unwholesomeness  of  the  water  in  which  the 
dead  alligators  are  decomposing,  —  remarks 


ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS     109 

which  Mr.   Kipling  has    unconsciously  paro 
died  :  — 

But  'e  gets  into  the  drinking  casks,  and  then  o'  course  we 
dies. 

The  wonderful  thing  about  the  "  Sugar- 
Cane  "  is  that  it  was  read  ;  —  nay,  more,  that 
it  was  read  aloud  at  the  house  of  Sir  Joshua 
Keynolds,  and  though  the  audience  laughed,  it 
listened.  Dodsley  published  the  poem  in  hand 
some  style ;  a  second  edition  was  called  for ;  it 
was  reprinted  in  Jamaica,  and  pirated  (what 
were  the  pirates  thinking  about!)  in  1766. 
Even  Dr.  Johnson  wrote  a  friendly  notice  in 
the  London  "  Chronicle,"  though  he  always 
maintained  that  the  poet  might  just  as  well 
have  sung  the  beauties  of  a  parsley-bed  or  of  a 
cabbage  garden.  He  took  the  same  high  ground 
when  Boswell  called  his  attention  to  Dyer's 
"Fleece."  —  "The  subject,  Sir,  cannot  be 
made  poetical.  How  can  a  man  write  poetically 
of  serges  and  druggets?" 

It  was  not  for  the  sake  of  sentiment  or  story 
that  the  English  public  read  "  The  Fleece." 
Nor  could  it  have  been  for  practical  guidance  ; 
for  farmers,  even  in  1757,  must  have  had  some 


110     ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS 
musty  almanacs,  some  plain  prose  manuals  to 
advise  them.  They  could  never  have  waited  to 
learn  from  an  epic  poem  that 

the  coughing  pest 
From  their  green  pastures  sweeps  whole  flocks  away, 

or  that 

Sheep  also  pleurisies  and  dropsies  know, 

or  that 

The  infectious  scab,  arising  from  extremes 
Of  want  or  surfeit,  is  by  water  cured 
Of  lime,  or  sodden  stave-acre,  or  oil 
Dispersive  of  Norwegian  tar. 

Did  the  British  woolen-drapers  of  the  period 
require  to  be  told  in  verse  about 

V 

Cheyney,  and  bayse,  and  serge,  and  alepine, 
Tammy,  and  crape,  and  the  long  countless  list 
Of  woolen  webs. 

Surely  they  knew  more  about  their  own  dry- 
goods  than  did  Mr.  Dyer.  Is  it  possible  that 
British  parsons  read  Mr.  Polwhele's  "  English 
Orator  "  for  the  sake  of  his  somewhat  confused 
advice  to  preachers  ?  — 

Meantime  thy  Style  familiar,  that  alludes 
With  pleasing  Retrospect  to  recent  Scenes 
Or  Incidents  amidst  thy  Flock,  fresh  graved 
On  Memory,  shall  recall  their  scattered  Thoughts, 
And  interest  every  Bosom.  With  the  Voice 


ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS      111 

Of  condescending-  Gentleness  address 
Thy  kindred  People. 

It  was  Miss  Seward's  opinion  that  the  neg 
lect  of  Mr.  Polwhele's  "  poetic  writings  "  was 
a  disgrace  to  literary  England,  from  which  we 
conclude  that  the  reverend  author  outwore  the 
patience  of  his  readers.  "Mature  in  dulness 
from  his  earliest  years,"  he  had  wisely  adopted 
a  profession  which  gave  his  qualities  room  for 
expansion.  What  his  congregation  must  have 
suffered  when  he  addressed  it  with  "conde 
scending  gentleness,"  we  hardly  like  to  think ; 
but  free-born  Englishmen,  who  were  so  fortu 
nate  as  not  to  hear  him,  refused  to  make  good 
their  loss  by  reading  the  "  English  Orator," 
even  after  it  had  been  revised  by  a  bishop. 
Miss  Seward  praised  it  highly ;  in  return  for 
which  devotion  she  was  hailed  as  a  "  Parnas 
sian  sister  "  in  six  benedictory  stanzas. 

Still  gratitude  her  stores  among-, 

Shall  bid  the  plausive  poet  sing- ; 
And,  if  the  last  of  all  the  throng 

That  rise  on  the  poetic  wing, 
Yet  not  regardless  of  his  destined  way, 
If  Seward's  envied  sanction  stamps  the  lay. 

The  Swan,  indeed,  was  never  without  admir- 


112     ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS 

ers.  Her  "  Louisa ;  a  Poetical  Novel  in  four 
Epistles,"  was  favourably  noticed  ;  Dr.  John 
son  praised  her  ode  on  the  death  of  Captain 
Cook ;  and  no  contributor  to  the  Bath  Easton 
vase  received  more  myrtle  wreaths  than  she 
did.  "  Warble  "  was  the  word  commonly  used 
by  partial  critics  in  extolling  her  verse.  "  Long 
may  she  continue  to  warble  as  heretofore,  in 
such  numbers  as  few  even  of  our  favourite 
bards  would  be  shy  to  own."  Scott  sorrowfully 
admitted  to  Miss  Baillie  that  he  found  these 
warblings  —  of  which  he  was  the  reluctant  ed 
itor —  "execrable  " ;  and  that  the  despair  which 
filled  his  soul  on  receiving  Miss  Seward's  let 
ters  gave  him  a  lifelong  horror  of  sentiment ; 
but  for  once  it  is  impossible  to  sympathize 
with  Sir  Walter's  sufferings.  If  he  had  never 
praised  the  verses,  he  would  never  have  been 
called  upon  to  edit  them ;  and  James  Ballan- 
tyne  would  have  been  saved  the  printing  of  an 
unsalable  book.  There  is  no  lie  so  little  worth 
the  telling  as  that  which  is  spoken  in  pure 
kindness  to  spare  a  wholesome  pang. 

It  was,  however,  the  pleasant  custom  of  the 
time  to  commend  and  encourage  female  poets,  as 


ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS     113 

we  commend  and  encourage  a  child's  unsteady 
footsteps.  The  generous  Hayley  welcomed  with 
open  arms  these  fair  competitors  for  fame. 

The  bards  of  Britain  with  unjaundiced  eyes 
Will  glory  to  behold  such  rivals  rise. 

He  ardently  flattered  Miss  Seward,  and  for 
Miss  Hannah  More  his  enthusiasm  knew  no 
bounds. 

But  with  a  magical  control, 

Thy  spirit-moving  strain 
Dispels  the  languor  of  the  soul, 

Annihilating  pain. 

"  Spirit-moving  "  seems  the  last  epithet  in  the 
world  to  apply  to  Miss  More's  strains ;  but 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  public  believed  her 
to  be  as  good  a  poet  as  a  preacher,  and  that  it 
supported  her  high  estimate  of  her  own  powers. 
After  a  visit  to  another  lambent  flame,  Mrs. 
Barbauld,  she  writes  with  irresistible  gravity : 
"  Mrs.  B.  and  I  have  found  out  that  we  feel 
as  little  envy  and  malice  towards  each  other, 
as  though  we  had  neither  of  us  attempted  to 
4  build  the  lofty  rhyme ' ;  although  she  says 
this  is  what  the  envious  and  the  malicious  can 
never  be  brought  to  believe." 


114     ON  THE  SLOPES  OF  PARNASSUS 

Think  of  the  author  of  "  The  Search  after 
Happiness ?'  and  the  author  of  "  A  Poetical 
Epistle  to  Mr. Wilberforce  "  loudly  refusing  to 
envy  each  other's  eminence !  There  is  nothing 
like  it  in  the  strife-laden  annals  of  fame. 

Finally  there  stepped  into  the  arena  that 
charming  embodiment  of  the  female  muse,  Mrs. 
Hemans ;  and  the  manly  heart  of  Protestant 
England  warmed  into  homage  at  her  shrine. 
From  the  days  she  "  first  carolled  forth  her 
poetic  talents  under  the  animating  influence 
of  an  affectionate  and  admiring  circle,"  to  the 
days  when  she  faded  gracefully  out  of  life,  her 
"  half-etherealized  spirit  "  rousing  itself  to  dic 
tate  a  last  "  Sabbath  Sonnet,"  she  was  crowned 
and  garlanded  with  bays.  In  the  first  place,  she 
was  fair  to  see,  —  Fletcher's  bust  shows  real 
loveliness ;  and  it  was  Christopher  North's 
opinion  that  "  no  really  ugly  woman  ever  wrote 
a  truly  beautiful  poem  the  length  of  her  little 
finger."  In  the  second  place,  she  was  sincerely 
pious ;  and  the  Ettrick  Shepherd  reflected  the 
opinion  of  his  day  when  he  said  that  "  without 
religion,  a  woman  's  just  an  even-down  deevil." 
The  appealing  helplessness  of  Mrs,  Hemans's 


ON  THE  SLOPES   OF  PARNASSUS     115 

gentle  and  affectionate  nature,  the  narrowness 
of  her  sympathies,  and  the  limitations  of  her 
art  were  all  equally  acceptable  to  critics  like 
Gilford  and  Jeffrey,  who  held  strict  views  as 
to  the  rounding  of  a  woman's  circle.  Even 
Byron  heartily  approved  of  a  pious  and  pretty 
woman  writing  pious  and  pretty  poems.  Even 
Wordsworth  flung  her  lordly  words  of  praise. 
Even  Shelley  wrote  her  letters  so  eager  and 
ardent  that  her  very  sensible  mamma,  Mrs. 
Browne,  requested  him  to  cease.  And  as  for 
Scott,  though  he  confessed  she  was  too  poetical 
for  his  taste,  he  gave  her  always  the  honest 
friendship  she  deserved.  It  was  to  her  he  said, 
when  some  tourists  left  them  hurriedly  at  New 
ark  Tower:  "Ah,  Mrs.  Hemans,  they  little 
know  what  two  lions  they  are  running  away 
from."  It  was  to  her  he  said,  when  she  was 
leaving  Abbotsford:  "There  are  some  whom 
we  meet,  and  should  like  ever  after  to  claim  as 
kith  and  kin ;  and  you  are  of  this  number." 

Who  would  not  gladly  have  written  "  The 
Siege  of  Valencia"  and  "The  Vespers  of  Pa 
lermo,"  to  have  heard  Sir  Walter  say  these 
words? 


THE   LITERARY   LADY 

Out-pensioners  of  Parnassus.  —  HORACE  WALPOLE. 

IN  this  overrated  century  of  progress,  when 
women  have  few  favours  shown  them,  but  are 
asked  to  do  their  work  or  acknowledge  their 
deficiencies,  the  thoughtful  mind  turns  discon 
solately  back  to  those  urbane  days  when  every 
tottering  step  they  took  was  patronized  and 
praised.  It  must  have  been  very  pleasant  to  be 
able  to  publish  "  Paraphrases  and  Imitations 
of  Horace,"  without  knowing  a  word  of  Latin. 
Latin  is  a  difficult  language  to  study,  and  much 
useful  time  may  be  wasted  in  acquiring  it ;  there 
fore  Miss  Anna  Seward  eschewed  the  tedious 
process  which  most  translators  deem  essential. 
Yet  her  paraphrases  were  held  to  have  caught 
the  true  Horatian  spirit;  and  critics  praised 
them  all  the  more  indulgently  because  of  their 
author's  feminine  attitude  to  the  classics. 
"  Over  the  lyre  of  Horace,"  she  wrote  elegantly 
to  Mr.  Repton,  "  I  throw  an  unfettered  hand." 
It  may  be  said  that  critics  were  invariably 


THE  LITERARY  LADY  117 

indulgent  to  female  writers  (listen  to  Christo 
pher  North  purring  over  Mrs.  Hemans  !)  until 
they  stepped,  like  Charlotte  Bronte,  from  their 
appointed  spheres,  and  hotly  challenged  the 
competition  of  the  world.  This  was  a  disagree 
able  and  a  disconcerting  thing  for  them  to  do. 
Nobody  could  patronize  "  Jane  Eyre,"  and  none 
of  the  pleasant  things  which  were  habitually 
murmured  about "  female  excellence  and  talent " 
seemed  to  fit  this  firebrand  of  a  book.  Had 
Charlotte  Bronte  taken  to  heart  Mrs.  King's 
"  justly  approved  work "  on  "  The  Beneficial 
Effects  of  the  Christian  Temper  upon  Domestic 
Happiness,"  she  would  not  have  shocked  and 
pained  the  sensitive  reviewer  of  the  "  Quar 
terly." 

It  was  in  imitation  of  that  beacon  light,  Miss 
Hannah  More,  that  Mrs.  King  wrote  her 
famous  treatise.  It  was  in  imitation  of  Miss 
Hannah  More  that  Mrs.  Trimmer  (abhorred  by 
Lamb)  wrote  "  The  Servant's  Friend,"  "  Help 
to  the  Unlearned,"  and  the  "  Charity  School 
Spelling  Book," —  works  which  have  passed  out 
of  the  hands  of  men,  but  whose  titles  survive  to 
fill  us  with  wonder  and  admiration.  Was  there 


118  THE  LITERARY   LADY 

ever  a  time  when  the  unlearned  frankly  recog 
nized  their  ignorance,  and  when  a  mistress 
ventured  to  give  her  housemaids  a  "  Servant's 
Friend"?  Was  spelling  in  the  charity  schools 
different  from  spelling  elsewhere,  or  were 
charity-school  children  taught  a  limited  vocabu 
lary,  from  which  all  words  of  rank  had  been 
eliminated  ?  Those  were  days  when  the  upper 
classes  were  affable  and  condescending,  when 
the  rural  poor  —  if  not  intoxicated  —  curtsied 
and  invoked  blessings  on  their  benefactors  all 
day  long,  and  when  benevolent  ladies  told  the 
village  politicians  what  it  was  well  for  them  to 
know.  But  even  at  this  restful  period,  a 
44  Charity  School  Spelling  Book  "  seems  ill  cal 
culated  to  inspire  the  youthful  student  with 
enthusiasm. 

Mrs.  Trimmer's  attitude  to  the  public  was 
marked  by  that  refined  diffidence  which  was 
considered  becoming  in  a  female.  Her  biogra 
pher  assures  us  that  she  never  coveted  literary 
distinction,  although  her  name  was  celebrated 
44  wherever  Christianity  was  established,  and  the 
English  language  was  spoken."  Royalty  took 
her  by  the  hand,  and  bishops  expressed  their 


THE   LITERARY  LADY  119 

overwhelming  sense  of  obligation.  We  sigh  to 
think  how  many  ladies  became  famous  against 
their  wills  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  and 
how  hard  it  is  now  to  raise  our  aspiring  heads. 
There  was  Miss  —  or,  as  she  preferred  to  be 
called,*  Mrs.  —  Carter,  who  read  Greek,  and 
translated  Epictetus,  who  was  admired  by  "  the 
great,  the  gay,  the  good,  and  the  learned  " ;  yet 
who  could  with  difficulty  be  persuaded  to  bear 
the  burden  of  her  own  eminence.  It  was  the 
opinion  of  her  friends  that  Miss  Carter  had 
conferred  a  good  deal  of  distinction  upon  Epic 
tetus  by  her  translation,  —  by  setting,  as  Dr. 
Young  elegantly  phrased  it,  this  Pagan  jewel 
in  gold.  We  find  Mrs.  Montagu  writing  to  this 
effect,  and  expressing  in  round  terms  her  sense 
of  the  philosopher's  obligation.  "  Might  not 
such  an  honour  from  a  fair  hand  make  even  an 
Epictetus  proud,  without  being  censured  for  it? 
Nor  let  Mrs.  Carter's  amiable  modesty  become 
blameable  by  taking  offence  at  the  truth,  but 
stand  the  shock  of  applause  which  she  has 
brought  upon  her  own  head." 

It  was  very  comforting  to  receive  letters  like 
this,  to  be  called  upon  to  brace  one's  self  against 


120  THE   LITERARY   LADY 

the  shock  of  applause,  instead  of  against  the 
chilly  douche  of  disparagement.  Miss  Carter 
retorted,  as  in  duty  bound,  by  imploring  her 
friend  to  employ  her  splendid  abilities  upon 
some  epoch-making  work,  —  some  work  which, 
while  it  entertained  the  world,  "  would  be  ap 
plauded  by  angels,  and  registered  in  Heaven." 
Perhaps  the  uncertainty  of  angelic  readers 
daunted  even  Mrs.  Montagu,  for  she  never  re 
sponded  to  this  and  many  similar  appeals ;  but 
suffered  her  literary  reputation  to  rest  secure 
on  her  defence  of  Shakespeare,  and  three  papers 
contributed  to  Lord  Lyttelton's  "  Dialogues  of 
the  Dead."  Why,  indeed,  should  she  have  la 
boured  further,  when,  to  the  end  of  her  long  and 
honoured  life,  men  spoke  of  her  ''transcend 
ent  talents,"  her  "magnificent  attainments"? 
Had  she  written  a  history  of  the  world,  she 
could  not  have  been  more  reverently  praised. 
Lord  Lyttelton,  transported  with  pride  at  hav 
ing  so  distinguished  a  collaborator,  wrote  to  her 
that  the  French  translation  of  the  "  Dialogues" 
was  as  well  done  as  u  the  poverty  of  the  French 
tongue  would  permit  "  ;  and  added  unctuously, 
"  but  such  eloquence  as  yours  must  lose  by 


THE  LITERARY  LADY  121 

being  translated  into  any  other  language.  Your 
form  and  manner  would  seduce  Apollo  himself 
on  his  throne  of  criticism  on  Parnassus." 

Lord  Lyttelton  was  perhaps  more  remark 
able  for  amiability  than  for  judgment ;  but  Sir 
Nathaniel  Wraxall,  who  wrote  good  letters  him 
self,  ardently  admired  Mrs.  Montagu's,  and 
pronounced  her  "  the  Madame  du  Deffand  of 
the  English  capital."  Cowper  meekly  admitted 
that  she  stood  at  the  head  "  of  all  that  is  called 
learned,"  and  that  every  critic  "  veiled  his  bon 
net  before  her  superior  judgment."  Even  Dr. 
Johnson,  though  he  despised  the  "  Dialogues," 
and  protested  to  the  end  of  his  life  that  Shake 
speare  stood  in  no  need  of  Mrs.  Montagu's 
championship,  acknowledged  that  the  lady  was 
well-informed  and  intelligent.  "  Conversing 
with  her,"  he  said,  "  you  may  find  variety  in 
one  " ;  and  this  charming  phrase  stands  now  as 
the  most  generous  interpretation  of  her  fame. 
It  is  something  we  can  credit  amid  the  be 
wildering  nonsense  which  was  talked  and  writ 
ten  about  a  woman  whose  hospitality  dazzled 
society,  and  whose  assertiveness  dominated  her 
friends. 


122  THE  LITERARY  LADY 

There  were  other  literary  ladies  belonging  to 
this  charmed  circle  whose  reputations  rested 
on  frailer  foundations.  Mrs.  Montagu  did 
write  the  essay  on  Shakespeare  and  the  three 
dialogues.  Miss  Carter  did  translate  Epicte- 
tus.  Mrs.  Chapone  did  write  "  Letters  on  the 
Improvement  of  the  Mind,"  which  so  gratified 
George  the  Third  and  Queen  Charlotte  that 
they  entreated  her  to  compose  a  second  volume  ; 
and  she  did  dally  a  little  with  verse,  for  one  of 
her  odes  was  prefixed  —  Heaven  knows  why ! 
—  to  Miss  Carter's  "  Epictetus";  and  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  the  Duke  of  York,  even  little 
Prince  William,  were  all  familiar  with  this 
masterpiece.  There  never  was  a  lady  more 
popular  with  a  reigning  house,  and,  when  we 
dip  into  her  pages,  we  know  the  reason  why. 
A  firm  insistence  upon  admitted  truths,  a  lov 
ing  presentation  of  the  obvious,  a  generous 
championship  of  those  sweet  commonplaces  we 
all  deem  dignified  and  safe,  made  her  especially 
pleasing  to  good  King  George  and  his  consort. 
Even  her  letters  are  models  of  sapiency.  "  Tho' 
I  meet  with  no  absolutely  perfect  character," 
she  writes  to  Sir  William  Pepys,  "  yet  where 


THE  LITERARY  LADY  123 

I  find  a  good  disposition,  improved  by  good 
principles  and  virtuous  habits,  I  feel  a  moral 
assurance  that  I  shall  not  find  any  flagrant 
vices  in  the  same  person,  and  that  I  shall  never 
see  him  fall  into  any  very  criminal  action." 

The  breadth  and  tolerance  of  this  admission 
must  have  startled  her  correspondent,  seasoned 
though  he  was  to  intellectual  audacity.  Nor 
was  Mrs.  Chapone  lacking  in  the  gentle  art  of 
self-advancement ;  for,  when  about  to  publish  a 
volume  of  "  Miscellanies,"  she  requested  Sir 
William  to  write  an  essay  on  "  Affection  and 
Simplicity,"  or  "  Enthusiasm  and  Indiffer 
ence,"  and  permit  her  to  print  it  as  her  own. 
44  If  your  ideas  suit  my  way  of  thinking,"  she 
tells  him  encouragingly,  "  I  can  cool  them 
down  to,  my  manner  of  writing,  for  we  must 
not  have  a  hotchpotch  of  Styles;  and  if,  for 
any  reason,  I  should  not  be  able  to  make  use 
of  them,  you  will  still  have  had  the  benefit  of 
having  written  them,  and  may  peaceably  pos 
sess  your  own  property." 

There  are  many  ways  of  asking  a  favour ;  but 
to  assume  that  you  are  granting  the  favour 
that  you  ask  shows  spirit  and  invention.  Had 


124  THE  LITERARY   LADY 

Mrs.  Cbapone  written  nothing  but  tins  model 
of  all  begging  letters,  she  would  be  worthy  to 
take  high  rank  among  the  literary  ladies  of 
Great  Britain. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  establish  the  claim  of 
Mrs.  Boscawen,  who  looms  nebulously  on  the 
horizon  as  the  wife  of  an  admiral,  and  the 
friend  of  Miss  Hannah  More,  from  whom  she 
received  flowing  compliments  in  the  "Bas 
Bleu." 

Each  art  of  conversation  knowing, 
High-bred,  elegant  Boscawen. 

We  are  told  that  this  lady  was  "  distinguished 
by  the  strength  of  her  understanding,  the 
poignancy  of  her  humour,  and  the  brilliancy  of 
her  wit " ;  but  there  does  not  survive  the  mildest 
joke,  the  smallest  word  of  wisdom  to  illustrate 
these  qualities.  Then  there  was  Mrs.  Schimmel- 
penninck,  whose  name  alone  was  a  guarantee 
of  immortality ;  and  the  "  sprightly  and  pleas 
ing  Mrs.  Ironmonger "  ;  and  Miss  Lee,  who 
could  repeat  the  whole  of  Miss  Burney's  "  Ce 
cilia  "  (a  shocking  accomplishment) ;  and  the 
vivacious  Miss  Monckton,  whom  Johnson  called 
a  dunce ;  and  Miss  Elizabeth  Hamilton,  a  use- 


THE  LITERARY  LADY  125 

fid  person,  "equally  competent  to  form  the 
minds  and  manners  of  the  daughters  of  a  no 
bleman,  and  to  reform  the  simple  but  idle 
habits  of  the  peasantry";  and  Mrs.  Bennet, 
whose  letters  —  so  Miss  Seward  tells  us  — 
"breathed  Ciceronean  spirit  and  eloquence," 
and  whose  poems  revealed  "  the  terse  neatness, 
humour,  and  gayety  of  Swift,"  which  makes 
it  doubly  distressful  that  neither  letters  nor 
poems  have  survived.  Above  all,  there  was  the 
mysterious  "Sylph,"  who  glides  —  sylphlike  — 
through  a  misty  atmosphere  of  conjecture  and 
adulation  ;  and  about  whom  we  feel  some  of  the 
fond  solicitude  expressed  over  and  over  again 
by  the  letter-writers  of  this  engaging  period. 

Translated  into  prose,  the   Sylph  becomes 
Mrs.  Agmondesham  Vesey,  — 

Vesey,  of  verse  the  judge  and  friend,  — 

a  fatuous  deaf  lady,  with  a  taste  for  literary 
society,  and  a  talent  for  arranging  chairs.  She 
it  was  who  first  gathered  the  "  Blues "  to 
gether,  placing  them  in  little  groups  —  gener 
ally  back  to  back  —  and  flitting  so  rapidly 
from  one  group  to  another,  her  ear-trumpet 
hung  around  her  neck,  that  she  never  heard 


126  THE  LITERARY  LADY 

more  than  a  few  broken  sentences  of  conver 
sation.  She  had  what  Miss  Hannah  More 
amiably  called  "  plastic  genius,"  which  meant 
that  she  fidgeted  perpetually ;  and  what  Miss 
Carter  termed  "  a  delightful  spirit  of  innocent 
irregularity,"  which  meant  that  she  was  incon 
sequent  to  the  danger  point.  "  She  united,"  said 
Madame  d' Arblay, "  the  unguardedness  of  child 
hood  to  a  Hibernian  bewilderment  of  ideas 
which  cast  her  incessantly  into  some  burlesque 
situation."  But  her  kind-heartedness  (she  pro 
posed  having  her  drawing-room  gravelled,  so 
that  a  lame  friend  could  walk  on  it  without 
slipping)  made  even  her  absurdities  lovable, 
and  her  most  fantastic  behaviour  was  tolerated 
as  proof  of  her  aerial  essence.  u  There  is  no 
thing  of  mere  vulgar  mortality  about  our; 
Sylph,"  wrote  Miss  Carter  proudly. 

It  was  in  accordance  with  this  pleasing  illu 
sion  that,  when  Mrs.  Vesey  took  a  sea  voyage, 
her  friends  spoke  of  her  as  though  she  were  a 
mermaid,  disporting  herself  in,  instead  of  on, 
the  ocean.  They  not  only  held  "  the  uproar  of 
a  stormy  sea  to  be  as  well  adapted  to  the  sub 
lime  of  her  imagination  as  the  soft  murmur  of 


THE  LITERARY  LADY  127 

a  gliding  stream  to  the  gentleness  of  her  tem 
per  "  (so  much  might  at  a  pinch  be  said  about 
any  of  us)  ;  but  we  find  Miss  Carter  writing 
to  Mrs.  Montagu  in  this  perplexing  strain  :  — 

"  I  fancy  our  Sylph  has  not  yet  left  the 
coral  groves  and  submarine  palaces  in  which 
she  would  meet  with  so  many  of  her  fellow 
nymphs  on  her  way  to  England.  I  think  if  she 
had  landed,  we  should  have  had  some  inform 
ation  about  it,  either  from  herself  or  from  some 
body  else  who  knows  her  consequence  to  us." 

The-  poor  Sylph  seems  to  have  had  rather  a 
hard  time  of  it  after  the  death  of  the  Honour 
able  Agmondesham,  who  relished  his  wife's 
vagaries  so  little,  or  feared  them  so  much,  that 
he  left  the  bulk  of  his  estate  to  his  nephew,  a 
respectable  young  man  with  no  unearthly  qual 
ities.  The  heir,  however,  behaved  generously 
to  his  widowed  aunt,  giving  her  an  income 
large  enough  to  permit  her  to  live  with  com 
fort,  and  to  keep  her  coach.  Miss  Carter  was 
decidedly  of  the  opinion  that  Mr.  Vesey  made 
such  a  "  detestable  "  will  because  he  was  lack 
ing  in  sound  religious  principles,  and  she  ex 
pressed  in  plain  terms  her  displeasure  with 


128  THE  LITERARY  LADY 

her  friend  for  mourning  persistently  over  the 
loss  of  one  who  "  so  little  deserved  her  tears." 
But  the  Sylph,  lonely,  middle-aged,  and  deaf, 
realized  perhaps  that  her  little  day  was  over. 
Mrs.  Montagu's  profuse  hospitality  had  sup 
planted  "  the  biscuit's  ample  sacrifice."  People 
no  longer  cared  to  sit  back  to  back,  talking 
platitudes  through  long  and  hungry  evenings. 
The  "  innocent  irregularity "  deepened  into 
melancholy,  into  madness ;  and  the  Sylph,  a 
piteous  mockery  of  her  old  sweet  foolish  self, 
faded  away,  dissolving  like  Niobe  in  tears. 

It  may  be  noted  that  the  mission  of  the 
literary  lady  throughout  all  these  happy  years 
was  to  elevate  and  refine.  Her  attitude  towards 
matters  of  the  intellect  was  one  of  obtrusive 
humility.  It  is  recorded  that  "  an  accomplished 
and  elegant  female  writer  "  (the  name,  alas ! 
withheld)  requested  Sir  William  Pepys  to 
mark  all  the  passages  in  Madame  de  StaeTs 
works  which  he  considered  "  above  her  com 
prehension."  Sir  William  "  with  ready  wit " 
declined  this  invidious  task;  but  agreed  to 
mark  all  he  deemed  "  worthy  of  her  attention." 
We  hardly  know  what  to  admire  the  most  in 


THE  LITERARY  LADY  129 

a  story  like  this ;  —  the  lady's  modesty,  Sir 
William's  tact,  or  the  revelation  it  affords  of  in 
finite  leisure.  When  we  remember  the  relent 
less  copiousness  of  Madame  de  StaeTs  books, 
we  wonder  if  the  amiable  annofcator  lived  long 
enough  to  finish  his  task. 

In  matters  of  morality,  however,  the  female 
pen  was  held  to  be  a  bulwark  of  Great  Britain. 
The  ambition  to  prove  that —  albeit  a  woman 
—  one  may  be  on  terms  of  literary  intimacy 
with  the  seven  deadly  sins  ("  Je  ne  suis  qu'un 
pauvre  diable  de  perruquier,  mais  je  ne  crois 
pas  en  Dieu  plus  que  les  autres  ")  had  not  yet 
dawned  upon  the  feminine  horizon.  The  liter 
ary  lady  accepted  with  enthusiasm  the  limita 
tions  of  her  sex,  and  turned  them  to  practical 
account ;  she  laid  with  them  the  foundations  of 
her  fame.  Mrs.  Montagu,  an  astute  woman  of 
the  world,  recognized  in  what  we  should  now 
call  an  enfeebling  propriety  her  most  valuable 
asset.  It  sanctified  her  attack  upon  Voltaire, 
it  enabled  her  to  snub  Dr.  Johnson,  and  it 
made  her,  in  the  opinion  of  her  friends,  the 
natural  and  worthy  opponent  of  Lord  Chester 
field.  She  was  entreated  to  come  to  the  rescue 


130  THE  LITERARY  LADY 

of  British  morality  by  denouncing  that  noble 
man's  "profligate"  letters;  and  we  find  the  Rev. 
Montagu  Pennington  lamenting  years  after 
wards  her  refusal  "  to  apply  her  wit  and  genius 
to  counteract  the  mischief  which  Lord  Ches 
terfield's  volumes  had  done." 

Miss  Hannah  More's  dazzling  renown  rested 
on  the  same  solid  support.  She  was  so  strong 
morally  that  to  have  cavilled  at  her  intellectual 
feebleness  would  have  been  deemed  profane. 
Her  advice  (she  spent  the  best  part  of  eighty- 
eight  years  in  offering  it)  was  so  estimable  that 
its  general  inadequacy  was  never  ascertained. 
Rich  people  begged  her  to  advise  the  poor. 
Great  people  begged  her  to  advise  the  humble. 
Satisfied  people  begged  her  to  advise  the  dis 
contented.  Sir  William  Pepys  wrote  to  her  in 
1792,  imploring  her  to  avert  from  England  the 
threatened  dangers  of  radicalism  and  a  division 
of  land  by  writing  a  dialogue  "  between  two 
persons  of  the  lowest  order,"  in  which  should 
be  set  forth  the  discomforts  of  land  ownership, 
and  the  advantages  of  labouring  for  small 
wages  at  trades.  This  simple  and  childlike 
scheme  would,  in  Sir  William's  opinion,  go  far 


THE  LITERARY  LADY  131 

towards  making  English  workmen  contented 
with  their  lot,  and  might  eventually  save  the 
country  from  the  terrible  bloodshed  of  France. 
Was  ever  higher  tribute  paid  to  sustained  and 
triumphant  propriety?  Look  at  Mary  Woll- 
stonecraft  vindicating  the  rights  of  woman  in 
sordid  poverty,  in  tears  and  shame ;  and  look 
at  Hannah  More,  an  object  of  pious  pilgrimage 
at  Cowslip  Green.  Her  sisters  were  awestruck 
at  finding  themselves  the  guardians  of  such  pre 
eminence.  Miss  Seward  eloquently  addressed 
them  as 

sweet  satellites  that  gently  bear 
Your  lesser  radiance  round  this  beamy  star ; 

and,  being  the  humblest  sisters  ever  known, 
they  seemed  to  have  liked  the  appellation. 
They  guarded  their  luminary  from  common 
contact  with  mankind ;  they  spoke  of  her  as 
"  she "  (like  Mr.  Eider  Haggard's  heroine), 
and  they  explained  to  visitors  how  good  and 
great  she  was,  and  what  a  condescension  it 
would  be  on  her  part  to  see  them,  when  two 
peeresses  and  a  bishop  had  been  turned  away 
the  day  before.  "It  is  an  exquisite  pleasure," 
wrote  Miss  Carter  enthusiastically,  "to  find 


132  THE  LITERARY   LADY 

distinguished  talents  and  sublime  virtue  placed 
in  such  an  advantageous  situation  "  ;  and  the 
modern  reader  is  reminded  against  his  will  of 
the  lively  old  actress  who  sighed  out  to  the 
painter  Mulready  her  unavailing  regrets  over 
a  misspent  life.  "  Ah,  Mulready,  if  I  had  only 
been  virtuous,  it  would  have  been  pounds  and 
pounds  in  my  pocket." 

"  Harmonious  virgins,"  sneered  Horace  Wai- 
pole,  "whose  thoughts  and  phrases  are  like  their 
gowns,  old  remnants  cut  and  turned  " ;  and  it  is 
painful  to  know  that  in  these  ribald  words  he 
is  alluding  to  the  Swan  of  Lichfield,  and  to  the 
"  glowing  daughter  of  Apollo,"  Miss  Helen 
Maria  Williams.  The  Swan  probably  never 
did  have  her  gowns  cut  and  turned,  for  she 
was  a  well-to-do  lady  with  an  income  of  four 
hundred  pounds ;  and  she  lived  very  grandly 
in  the  bishop's  palace  at  Lichfield,  where  her 
father  ("  an  angel,  but  an  ass,"  according  to 
Coleridge)  had  been  for  many  years  a  canon. 
But  Apollo  having,  after  the  fashion  of  gods, 
bequeathed  nothing  to  his  glowing  daughter 
but  the  gift  of  song,  Miss  Williams  might  oc 
casionally  have  been  glad  of  a  gown  to  turn. 


THE  LITERARY  LADY  133 

Her  juvenile  poem  "  Edwin  and  Eltruda  "  en 
riched  her  in  fame  only ;  but  "  Peru,"  being 
published  by  subscription  (blessed  days  when 
friends  could  be  turned  into  subscribers !), 
must  have  been  fairly  remunerative;  and  we 
hear  of  its  author  in  London  giving  "  literary 
breakfasts,"  a  popular  but  depressing  form  of 
entertainment.  If  ever  literature  be  "  alien  to 
the  natural  man,"  it  is  at  the  breakfast  hour. 
Miss  Williams  subsequently  went  to  Paris,  and 
became  an  ardent  revolutionist,  greatly  to  the 
distress  of  poor  Miss  Seward,  whose  enthusiasm 
for  the  cause  of  freedom  had  suffered  a  decline, 
and  who  kept  imploring  her  friend  to  come 
home.  "  Fly,  my  dear  Helen,  that  land  of  car 
nage  ! "  she  wrote  beseechingly.  But  Helen 
could  n't  fly,  being  then  imprisoned  by  the  un 
grateful  revolutionists,  who  seemed  unable,  or 
unwilling,  to  distinguish  friends  from  foes.  She 
had  moreover  by  that  time  allied  herself  to  Mr. 
John  Hurford  Stone,  a  gentleman  of  the  strict 
est  religious  views,  but  without  moral  prejudices, 
who  abandoned  his  lawful  wife  for  Apollo's 
offspring,  and  who,  as  a  consequence,  pre 
ferred  living  on  the  Continent.  Therefore  Miss 


134  THE  LITERARY  LADY 

Williams  fell  forever  from  the  bright  circle  of 
literary  stars ;  and  Lady  Morgan,  who  met  her 
years  afterwards  in  Paris,  had  nothing  more 
interesting  to  record  than  that  she  had  grown 
"  immensely  fat,"  —  an  unpoetic  and  unworthy 
thing  to  do.  "  For  when  corpulence,  which  is  a 
gift  of  evil,  cometh  upon  age,  then  are  vanished 
the  days  of  romance  and  of  stirring  deeds." 

Yet  sentiment,  if  not  romance,  clung  illu 
sively  to  the  literary  lady,  even  when  she 
surrendered  nothing  to  persuasion.  Strange 
shadowy  stories  of  courtship  are  told  with  pa 
thetic  simplicity.  Miss  Carter,  "  when  she  had 
nearly  attained  the  mature  age  of  thirty,"  was 
wooed  by  a  nameless  gentleman  of  unexcep 
tionable  character,  whom  "  she  was  induced 
eventually  to  refuse,  in  consequence  of  his 
having  written  some  verses,  of  the  nature  of 
which  she  disapproved."  Whether  these  verses 
were  improper  (perish  the  thought!)  or  merely 
ill-advised,  we  shall  never  know  ;  but  as  the  re 
jected  suitor  "  expressed  ever  after  a  strong  sense 
of  Miss  Carter's  handsome  behaviour  to  him," 
there  seems  to  have  been  on  his  part  something 
perilously  akin  to  acquiescence.  "  I  wonder," 


THE  LITERARY  LADY  135 

says  the  wise  Elizabeth  Bennet,  "who  first  dis 
covered  the  efficacy  of  poetry  in  driving  away 
love."  It  is  a  pleasure  to  turn  from  such  un 
certainties  to  the  firm  outlines  and  providential 
issues  of  Miss  Hannah  More's  early  attach 
ment.  When  the  wealthy  Mr.  Turner,  who  had 
wooed  and  won  the  lady,  manifested  an  un 
worthy  reluctance  to  marry  her,  she  consented 
to  receive,  in  lieu  of  his  heart  and  hand,  an  in 
come  of  two  hundred  pounds  a  year,  which 
enabled  her  to  give  up  teaching,  and  com 
mence  author  at  the  age  of  twenty-two.  The 
wedding  day  had  been  fixed,  the  wedding  dress 
was  made,  but  the  wedding  bells  were  never 
rung,  and  the  couple  —  like  the  lovers  in  the 
storybooks  —  lived  happily  ever  after.  The  only 
measure  of  retaliation  which  Miss  More  per 
mitted  herself  was  to  send  Mr.  Turner  a  copy 
of  every  book  and  of  every  tract  she  wrote; 
while  that  gentleman  was  often  heard  to  say, 
when  the  tracts  came  thick  and  fast,  that  Provi 
dence  had  overruled  his  desire  to  make  so  ad 
mirable  a  lady  his  wife,  because  she  was  destined 
for  higher  things. 

It  was  reserved  for  the  Lichfield  Swan  to 


136  THE   LITERARY  LADY 

work  the  miracle  of  miracles,  and  rob  love  of 
inconstancy.  She  was  but  eighteen  when  she 
inspired  a  passion  "  as  fervent  as  it  was  last 
ing"  in  the  breast  of  Colonel  Taylor,  men 
tioned  by  discreet  biographers  as  Colonel  T. 
The  young  man  being  without  income,  Mr. 
Seward,  who  was  not  altogether  an  ass,  de 
clined  the  alliance  ;  and  when,  four  years  later, 
a  timely  inheritance  permitted  a  renewal  of  the 
suit,  Miss  Seward  had  wearied  of  her  lover. 
Colonel  Taylor  accordingly  married  another 
young  woman ;  but  the  remembrance  of  the 
Swan,  and  an  unfortunate  habit  he  had  ac 
quired  of  openly  bewailing  her  loss,  "  clouded 
with  gloom  the  first  years  of  their  married 
life."  The  patient  Mrs.  Taylor  became  in  time 
so  deeply  interested  in  the  object  of  her  hus 
band's  devotion  that  she  opened  a  correspond 
ence  with  Miss  Seward,  —  who  was  the  cham 
pion  letter-writer  of  England,  —  repeatedly 
sought  to  make  her  acquaintance,  and  "  with 
melancholy  enthusiasm  was  induced  to  invest 
her  with  all  the  charms  imagination  could  de 
vise,  or  which  had  been  lavished  upon  her  by 
description." 


THE  LITERARY  LADY  137 

This  state  of  affairs  lasted  thirty  years,  at 
the  end  of  which  time  Colonel  Taylor  formed 
the  desperate  resolution  of  going  to  Lichfield, 
and  seeing  his  beloved  one  again.  He  went, 
he  handed  the  parlour-maid  a  prosaic  card  ;  and 
while  Miss  Seward  —  a  stoutish,  middle-aged, 
lame  lady  —  was  adjusting  her  cap  and  ker 
chief,  he  strode  into  the  hall,  cast  one  impas 
sioned  glance  up  the  stairway,  and  rapidly  left 
the  house.  When  asked  by  his  wife  why  he 
had  not  stayed,  he  answered  solemnly :  "  The 
gratification  must  have  been  followed  by  pain 
and  regret  that  would  have  punished  the  te 
merity  of  the  attempt.  I  had  no  sooner  entered 
the  house  than  I  became  sensible  of  the  per 
ilous  state  of  my  feelings,  and  fled  with  pre 
cipitation." 

And  the  Swan  was  fifty-two !  Well  may  we 
sigh  over  the  days  when  the  Literary  Lady 
not  only  was  petted  and  praised,  not  only  was 
the  bulwark  of  Church  and  State ;  but  when 
she  accomplished  the  impossible,  and  kindled 
in  man's  inconstant  heart  an  inextinguishable 
flame. 


THE  CHILD 

I  was  not  initiated  into  any  rudiments  'till  near  four  years 
of  age.  —  JOHN  EVELYN. 

THE  courage  of  mothers  is  proverbial.  There 
is  no  danger  which  they  will  not  brave  in  be 
half  of  their  offspring.  But  I  have  always 
thought  that,  for  sheer  foolhardiness,  no  one 
ever  approached  the  English  lady  who  asked 
Dr.  Johnson  to  read  her  young  daughter's 
translation  from  Horace.  He  did  read  it,  be 
cause  the  gods  provided  no  escape  ;  and  he  told 
his  experience  to  Miss  Reynolds,  who  said 
soothingly,  "  And  how  was  it,  Sir  ?  "  "  Why, 
very  well  for  a  young  Miss's  verses,"  was  the 
contemptuous  reply.  "  That  is  to  say,  as  com 
pared  with  excellence,  nothing ;  but  very  well 
for  the  person  who  wrote  them.  I  am  vexed  at 
being  shown  verses  in  that  manner." 

The  fashion  of  focussing  attention  upon 
children  had  not  in  Dr.  Johnson's  day  assumed 
the  fell  proportions  which,  a  few  years  later, 
practically  extinguished  childhood.  It  is  true 
that  he  objected  to  Mr.  Bennet  Langton's  con- 


THE  CHILD  139 

nubial  felicity,  because  the  children  were  "  too 
much  about "  ;  and  that  he  betrayed  an  un 
worthy  impatience  when  the  ten  little  Langtons 
recited  fables,  or  said  their  alphabets  in  Hebrew 
for  his  delectation.  It  is  true  also  that  he  an 
swered  with  pardonable  rudeness  when  asked 
what  was  the  best  way  to  begin  a  little  boy's 
education.  He  said  it  mattered  no  more  how 
it  was  begun,  that  is,  what  the  child  was 
taught  first,  than  it  mattered  which  of  his  little 
legs  he  first  thrust  into  his  breeches, — a  cal 
lous  speech,  painful  to  parents'  ears.  Dr. 
Johnson  had  been  dead  four  years  when  Mrs. 
Hartley,  daughter  of  Dr.  David  Hartley  of 
Bath,  wrote  to  Sir  William  Pepys :  — 

"  Education  is  the  rage  of  the  times.  Every 
body  tries  to  make  their  children  more  won 
derful  than  any  children  of  their  acquaintance. 
The  poor  little  things  are  so  crammed  with 
knowledge  that  there  is  scant  time  for  them  to 
obtain  by  exercise,  and  play,  and  vacancy  of 
mind,  that  strength  of  body  which  is  much 
more  necessary  in  childhood  than  learning." 

I  am  glad  this  letter  went  to  Sir  William, 
who  was  himself  determined  that  his  children 


140  THE  CHILD 

should  not,  at  any  rate,  be  less  wonderful  than 
other  people's  bantlings.  When  his  eldest  son 
had  reached  the  mature  age  of  six,  we  find  him 
writing  to  Miss  Hannah  More  and  Mrs.  Cha- 
pone,  asking  what  books  he  shall  give  the  poor 
infant  to  read,  and  explaining  to  these  august 
ladies  his  own  theories  of  education.  Mrs. 
Chapone,  with  an  enthusiasm  worthy  of  Mrs. 
Blimber,  replies  that  she  sympathizes  with  the 
rare  delight  it  must  be  to  him  to  teach  little 
William  Latin ;  and  that  she  feels  jealous  for 
the  younger  children,  who,  being  yet  in  the 
nursery,  are  denied  their  brother's  privileges. 
When  the  boy  is  ten,  Sir  William  reads  to  him 
"  The  Faerie  Queene,"  and  finds  that  he  grasps 
"  the  beauty  of  the  description  and  the  force 
of  the  allegory."  At  eleven  he  has  "  an  ani 
mated  relish  for  Ovid  and  Virgil."  And  the 
more  the  happy  father  has  to  tell  about  the 
precocity  of  his  child,  the  more  Mrs.  Chapone 
stimulates  and  confounds  him  with  tales  of 
other  children's  prowess.  When  she  hears  that 
the  "  sweet  Boy  "is  to  be  introduced,  at  five, 
to  the  English  classics,  she  writes  at  once  about 
a  little  girl,  who,  when  "  rather  younger  than 


THE   CHILD  141 

he  is"  (the  bitterness  of  that!),  "had  several 
parts  of  Milton  by  heart."  These  "  she  under 
stood  so  well  as  to  apply  to  her  Mother  the 
speech  of  the  Elder  Brother  in  '  Comus,'  when 
she  saw  her  uneasy  for  want  of  a  letter  from 
the  Dean ;  and  began  of  her  own  accord  with 

'  Peace,  Mother,  be  not  over  exquisite 
To  cast  the  fashion  of  uncertain  evils  '"  ;  — 

advice  which  would  have  exasperated  a  normal 
parent  to  the  boxing  point. 

There  were  few  normal  parents  left,  how 
ever,  at  this  period,  to  stem  the  tide  of  infantile 
precocity.  Child  study  was  dawning  as  a  new 
and  fascinating  pursuit  upon  the  English  world ; 
and  the  babes  of  Britain  responded  nobly  to 
the  demands  made  upon  their  incapacity.  Miss 
Anna  Seward  lisped  Milton  at  three,  "recited 
poetical  passages,  with  eyes  brimming  with  de 
light,"  at  five,  and  versified  her  favourite  psalms 
at  nine.  Her  father,  who  viewed  these  alarming 
symptoms  with  delight,  was  so  ill-advised  as  to 
offer  her,  when  she  was  ten,  a  whole  half-crown, 
if  she  would  write  a  poem  on  Spring ;  whereupon 
she  "  swiftly  penned  "  twenty-five  lines,  which 
have  been  preserved  to  an  ungrateful  world, 


142  THE  CHILD 

and  which  shadow  forth  the  painful  prolixity  of 
future  days.  At  four  years  of  age,  little  Hannah 
More  was  already  composing  verses  with  omi 
nous  ease.  At  five,  she  "  struck  mute "  the 
respected  clergyman  of  the  parish  by  her  ex 
haustive  knowledge  of  the  catechism.  At  eight, 
we  are  told  her  talents  "  were  of  such  a  mani 
festly  superior  order  that  her  father  did  not 
scruple  to  combine  with  the  study  of  Latin 
some  elementary  instruction  in  mathematics ; 
a  fact  which  her  readers  might  very  naturally 
infer  from  the  clear  and  logical  cast  of  her 
argumentative  writings." 

It  is  not  altogether  easy  to  trace  the  connec 
tion  between  Miss  More's  early  sums  and  her 
argumentative  writings;  but,  as  an  illustration 
of  her  logical  mind,  I  may  venture  to  quote  a 
"characteristic"  anecdote,  reverently  told  by 
her  biographer,  Mr.  Thompson.  A  young  lady, 
whose  sketches  showed  an  unusual  degree  of 
talent,  was  visiting  in  Bristol;  and  her  work 
was  warmly  admired  by  Miss  Mary,  Miss  Sally, 
Miss  Elizabeth,  and  Miss  Patty  More.  Hannah 
alone  withheld  all  word  of  commendation,  sit 
ting  in  stony  silence  whenever  the  drawings 


THE   CHILD  143 

were  produced;  until  one  day  she  found  the 
artist  hard  at  work,  putting  a  new  binding  on 
a  petticoat.  Then,  "fixing  her  brilliant;  eyes 
with  an  expression  of  entire  approbation  upon 
the  girl,  she  said : '  No  w,  my  dear,  that  I  find  you 
can  employ  yourself  usefully,  I  will  no  longer 
forbear  to  express  my  admiration  of  your  draw- 
ings.' " 

Only  an  early  familiarity  with  the  multipli 
cation  table  could  have  made  so  ruthless  a 
logician. 

If  Dr.  Johnson,  being  childless,  found  other 
people's  children  in  his  way,  how  fared  the 
bachelors  and  spinsters  who,  as  time  went  on, 
were  confronted  by  a  host  of  infant  prodigies; 
who  heard  little  Anna  Letitia  Aikin  —  after 
wards  Mrs.  Barbauld  —  read  "  as  well  as  most 
women"  at  two  and  a  half  years  of  age;  and 
little  Anna  Maria  Porter  declaim  Shakespeare 
"with  precision  of  emphasis  and  firmness  of 
voice  "  at  five ;  and  little  Alphonso  Hayley  recite 
a  Greek  ode  at  six.  We  wonder  if  anybody 
ever  went  twice  to  homes  that  harboured  child 
hood;  and  we  sympathize  with  Miss  Ferrier's 
bitterness  of  soul,  when  she  describes  a  family 


144  THE  CHILD 

dinner  at  which  Eliza's  sampler  and  Alex 
ander's  copy-book  are  handed  round  to  the 
guests,  and  Anthony  stands  up  and  repeats 
"  My  name  is  Norval "  from  beginning  to  end, 
and  William  Pitt  is  prevailed  upon  to  sing  the 
whole  of  "God  save  the  King."  It  was  also  a 
pleasant  fashion  of  the  time  to  write  eulogies 
on  one's  kith  and  kin.  Sisters  celebrated  their 
brothers'  talents  in  affectionate  verse,  and  fa 
thers  confided  to  the  world  what  marvellous 
children  they  had.  Even  Dr.  Burney,  a  man 
of  sense,  poetizes  thus  on  his  daughter  Susan :  — 

Nor  did  her  intellectual  powers  require 
The  usual  aid  of  labour  to  inspire 
Her  soul  with  prudence,  wisdom,  and  a  taste 
Unerring  in  refinement,  sound  and  chaste. 

This  was  fortunate  for  Susan,  as  most  young 
people  of  the  period  were  compelled  to  labour 
hard.  There  was  a  ghastly  pretence  on  the  part 
of  parents  that  children  loved  their  tasks,  and 
that  to  keep  them  employed  was  to  keep  them 
happy.  Sir  William  Pepys  persuaded  himself 
without  much  difficulty  that  little  William,  who 
had  weak  eyes  and  nervous  headaches,  relished 
Ovid  and  Virgil.  A  wonderful  and  terrible 


THE  CHILD  145 

letter  written  in  1786  by  the  Baroness  de  Bode, 
an  Englishwoman  married  to  a  German  and 
living  at  Deux-Ponts,  lays  bare  the  process  by 
which  ordinary  children  were  converted  into 
the  required  miracles  of  precocity.  Her  eldest 
boys,  aged  eight  and  nine,  appear  to  have  been 
the  principal  victims.  The  business  of  their 
tutor  was  to  see  that  they  were  "  fully  em 
ployed,"  and  this  is  an  account  of  their  day. 

"  In  their  walks  he  [the  tutor]  teaches  them 
natural  history  and  botany,  not  dryly  as  a  task, 
but  practically,  which  amuses  them  very  much. 
In  their  hours  of  study  come  drawing,  writing, 
reading,  and  summing.  Their  lesson  in  writ 
ing  consists  of  a  theme  which  they  are  to  trans 
late  into  three  languages,  and  sometimes  into 
Latin,  for  they  learn  that  a  little  also.  The 
boys  learn  Latin  as  a  recreation,  and  not  as  a 
task,  as  is  the  custom  in  England.  Perhaps  one 
or  two  hours  a  day  is  at  most  all  that  is  given 
to  that  study.  'T  is  certainly  not  so  dry  a  study, 
when  learnt  like  modern  languages.  We  have 
bought  them  the  whole  of  the  Classical  Authors, 
so  that  they  can  instruct  themselves  if  they 
will ;  between  ninety  and  a  hundred  volumes 


146  THE   CHILD 

in  large  octavo.  You  would  be  surprised,  — 
even  Charles  Auguste,  who  is  only  five,  reads 
German  well,  and  French  tolerably.  They  all 
write  very  good  hands,  both  in  Roman  and 
German  texts.  Clem  and  Harry  shall  write  you 
a  letter  in  English,  and  send  you  a  specimen 
of  their  drawing.  Harry  (the  second)  writes 
musick,  too.  He  is  a  charming  boy,  improves 
very  much  in  all  his  studies,  plays  very  prettily 
indeed  upon  the  harpsichord,  and  plays,  too,  all 
tunes  by  ear.  Clem  will,  I  think,  play  well  on  the 
violin  ;  but  't  is  more  difficult  in  the  beginning 
than  the  harpsichord.  Pie  is  at  this  moment 
taking  his  lesson,  the  master  accompanying  him 
on  the  pianoforte  ;  and  when  Henry  plays  that, 
the  master  accompanies  on  the  violin,  which 
forms  them  both,  and  pleases  them  at  the  same 
time.  In  the  evening  their  tutor  generally  re 
counts  to  them  very  minutely  some  anecdote 
from  history,  which  imprints  it  on  the  memory, 
amuses  them,  and  hurts  no  eyes." 

There  is  nothing  like  it  on  record  except  the 
rule  of  life  which  Frederick  William  the  First 
drew  up  for  little  Prince  Fritz,  when  that  un 
fortunate  child  was  nine  years  old,  and  which 


THE  CHILD  147 

disposed  of  his  day,  hour  by  hour,  and  minute 
by  minute.  But  then  Frederick  William  —  a 
truth-teller  if  a  tyrant  —  made  no  idle  pretence 
of  pleasing  and  amusing  his  son.  The  unpardon 
able  thing  about  the  Baroness  de  Bode  is  her 
smiling  assurance  that  one  or  two  hours  of 
Latin  a  day  afforded  a  pleasant  pastime  for 
children  of  eight  and  nine. 

This  was,  however,  the  accepted  theory  of 
education.  It  is  faithfully  reflected  in  all  the 
letters  and  literature  of  the  time.  When  Miss 
More's  redoubtable  "  Coelebs "  asks  Lucilla 
Stanley's  little  sister  why  she  is  crowned  with 
woodbine,  the  child  replies  :  "  Oh,  sir,  it  is  be 
cause  it  is  my  birthday.  I  am  eight  years  old 
to-day.  I  gave  up  all  my  gilt  books  with  pic 
tures  this  day  twelvemonth ;  and  to-day  I  give 
up  all  my  story-books,  and  I  am  now  going 
to  read  such  books  as  men  and  women  read." 
Whereupon  the  little  girl's  father  —  that  model 
father  whose  wisdom  flowers  into  many  chap 
ters  of  counsel  —  explains  that  he  makes  the 
renouncing  of  baby  books  a  kind  of  epoch  in 
his  daughters'  lives ;  and  that  by  thus  distinctly 
marking  the  period,  he  wards  off  any  return  to 


148  THE   CHILD 

the  immature  pleasures  of  childhood.  "We  have 
in  our  domestic  plan  several  of  these  artificial 
divisions  of  life.  These  little  celebrations  are 
eras  that  we  use  as  marking-posts  from  which 
we  set  out  on  some  new  course." 

Yet  the  "  gilt  books,"  so  ruthlessly  discarded 
at  eight  years  of  age,  were  not  all  of  an  infan 
tile  character.  For  half  a  century  these  famous 
little  volumes,  bound  in  Dutch  gilt  paper  — 
whence  their  name  —  found  their  way  into 
every  English  nursery,  and  provided  amuse 
ment  and  instruction  for  every  English  child. 
They  varied  from  the  "  histories "  of  Goody 
Two-Shoes  and  Miss  Sally  Spell  well  to  the 
"  histories  "  of  Tom  Jones  and  Clarissa  Har- 
lowe,  "  abridged  for  the  amusement  of  youth  " ; 
and  from  "  The  Seven  Champions  of  Christen 
dom  "  to  "The  First  Principles  of  Religion, 
and  the  Existence  of  a  Deity ;  Explained  in  a 
Series  of  Conversations,  Adapted  to  the  Capa 
city  of  the  Infant  Mind."  The  capacity  of  the 
infant  mind  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury  must  have  been  something  very  different 
from  the  capacity  of  the  infant  mind  to-day. 
In  a  gilt-book  dialogue  (1792)  I  find  a  father 


THE  CHILD  149 

asking  his  tiny  son :  "  Dick,  have  you  got  ten 
lines  of  Ovid  by  heart  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Papa,  and  I  've  wrote  my  exercise." 
"  Very  well,  then,  you  shall  ride  with  me. 
The  boy  who  does  a  little  at  seven  years  old, 
will  do  a  great  deal  when  he  is  fourteen." 

This  was  poor  encouragement  for  Dick,  who 
had  already  tasted  the  sweets  of  application.  It 
was  better  worth  while  for  Miss  Sally  Spell- 
well  to  reach  the  perfection  which  her  name 
implies,  for  she  was  adopted  by  a  rich  old  lady 
with  a  marriageable  son,  —  "  a  young  Gentle 
man  of  such  purity  of  Morals  and  good  Under 
standing  as  is  not  everywhere  to  be  found."  In 
the  breast  of  this  paragon  "  strange  emotions 
arise  "  at  sight  of  the  well-informed  orphan ; 
his  mother,  who  sets  a  proper  value  on  ortho 
graphy,  gives  her  full  consent  to  their  union  ; 
and  we  are  swept  from  the  contemplation  of 
samplers  and  hornbooks  to  the  triumphant  con 
clusion  :  "  Miss  Sally  Spell  well  now  rides  in  her 
coach  and  six."  Then  follows  the  unmistak 
able  moral :  — 

If  Virtue,  Learning,  Goodness  are  your  Aim, 
Each  pretty  Miss  may  hope  to  do  the  same  ; 


150  THE  CHILD 

an  anticipation  which  must  have  spurred  many 
a  female  child  to  diligence.  There  was  no  ill- 
advised  questioning  of  values  in  our  great- 
grandmothers'  day  to  disturb  this  point  of  view. 
As  the  excellent  Mrs.  West  observed  in  her 
"  Letters  to  a  young  Lady,"  a  book  sanctioned 
by  bishops,  and  dedicated  to  the  Queen  :  "  We 
unquestionably  were  created  to  be  the  wedded 
mates  of  man.  Nature  intended  that  man 
should  sue,  and  woman  coyly  yield." 

The  most  appalling  thing  about  the  preco 
cious  young  people  of  this  period  was  the  ease 
with  which  they  slipped  into  print.  Publishers 
were  not  then  the  adamantine  race  whose  pro 
vince  it  is  now  to  blight  the  hopes  of  youth. 
They  beamed  with  benevolence  when  the  first 
fruits  of  genius  were  confided  to  their  hands. 
Bishop  Thirlwall's  first  fruits,  his  "  Primitiae," 
were  published  when  he  was  eleven  years  old, 
with  a  preface  telling  the  public  what  a  wronder- 
f ul  boy  little  Connop  was  ;  —  how  he  studied 
Latin  at  three,  and  read  Greek  with  ease  and 
fluency  at  four,  and  wrote  with  distinction  at 
seven.  It  is  true  that  the  parent  Thirlwall  ap 
pears  to  have  paid  the  costs,  to  have  launched 


THE   CHILD  151 

his  son's  "  slender  bark "  upon  seas  which 
proved  to  be  stormless.  It  is  true  also  that  the 
bishop  suffered  acutely  in  later  years  from  this 
youthful  production,  and  destroyed  every  copy 
he  could  find.  But  there  was  no  proud  and 
wealthy  father  to  back  young  Richard  Pol- 
whele,  who  managed,  when  he  was  a  schoolboy 
in  Cornwall,  to  get  his  first  volume  of  verse 
published  anonymously.  It  was  called  "  The 
Fate  of  Llewellyn,"  and  was  consistently  bad, 
though  no  worse,  on  the  whole,  than  his  ma- 
turer  efforts.  The  title-page  stated  modestly 
that  the  writer  was  "  a  young  gentleman  of 
Truro  School "  ;  whereupon  an  ill-disposed 
critic  in  the  "  Monthly  Review  "  intimated  that 
the  master  of  Truro  School  would  do  well  to 
keep  his  young  gentlemen  out  of  print.  Dr. 
Cardew,  the  said  master,  retorted  hotly  that 
the  book  had  been  published  without  his  know 
ledge,  and  evinced  a  lack  of  appreciation,  which 
makes  us  fear  that  his  talented  pupil  had  a  bad 
half -hour  at  his  hands. 

Miss  Anna  Maria  Porter  —  she  who  de 
lighted  "  critical  audiences  "  by  reciting  Shake 
speare  at  five —  published  her  "  Artless  Tales  " 


152  THE   CHILD 

at  fifteen  ;  and  Mrs.  Hemans  was  younger  still 
when  her  "  Blossoms  of  Spring "  bloomed 
sweetly  upon  English  soil.  Some  of  the  "  Blos 
soms  "  had  been  written  before  she  was  ten. 
The  volume  was  a  "  fashionable  quarto,"  was 
dedicated  to  that  hardy  annual,  the  Prince 
Regent,  and  appears  to  have  been  read  by 
adults.  It  is  recorded  that  an  unkind  notice 
sent  the  little  girl  crying  to  bed  ;  but  as  her 
"  England  and  Spain  ;  or  Valour  and  Patriot 
ism"  was  published  nine  months  later,  and 
as  at  eighteen  she  "  beamed  forth  with  a 
strength  and  brilliancy  that  must  have  shamed 
her  reviewer,"  we  cannot  feel  that  her  poetic 
development  was  very  seriously  retarded. 

And  what  of  the  marvellous  children  whose 
subsequent  histories  have  been  lost  to  the 
world?  What  of  the  two  young  prodigies  of 
Lichfield,  "  Aonian  flowers  of  early  beauty  and 
intelligence,"  who  startled  Miss  Seward  and 
her  friends  by  their  "  shining  poetic  talents," 
and  then  lapsed  into  restful  obscurity  ?  What 
of  the  wonderful  little  girl  (ten  years  old) 
whom  Miss  Burney  saw  at  Tunbridge  Wells ; 
who  sang  "  like  an  angel,"  conversed  like  "  an 


THE  CHILD  153 

informed,  cultivated,  and  sagacious  woman," 
played,  danced,  acted  with  all  the  grace  of  a 
comedienne,  wept  tears  of  emotion  without 
disfiguring  her  pretty  face,  and,  when  asked 
if  she  read  the  novels  of  the  day  (what  a  ques 
tion  !),  replied  with  a  sigh:  "But  too  often! 
I  wish  I  did  not."  Miss  Burney  and  Mrs. 
Thrale  were  so  impressed — as  well  they  might 
be  —  by  this  little  Selina  Birch,  that  they 
speculated  long  and  fondly  upon  the  destiny 
reserved  for  one  who  so  easily  eclipsed  the 
other  miraculous  children  of  this  highly 
miraculous  age. 

"Doubtful  as  it  is  whether  we  shall  ever  see 
the  sweet  Syren  again,"  writes  Miss  Burney, 
"  nothing,  as  Mrs.  Thrale  said  to  her  "  (this, 
too,  was  well  advised),  "can  be  more  certain 
than  that  we  shall  hear  of  her  again,  let  her  go 
whither  she  will.  Charmed  as  we  all  were,  we 
agreed  that  to  have  the  care  of  her  would  be 
distraction.  ;  She  seems  the  girl  in  the  world,' 
Mrs.  Thrale  wisely  said,  4  to  attain  the  highest 
reach  of  human  perfection  as  a  man's  mistress. 
As  such  she  would  be  a  second  Cleopatra,  and 
have  the  world  at  her  command.' 


154  THE  CHILD 

"Poor  thing!  I  hope  to  Heaven  she  will 
escape  such  sovereignty  and  such  honours ! " 

She  did  escape  scot-free.  Whoever  married 
—  let  us  hope  he  married  —  Miss  Birch,  was 
no  Mark  Antony  to  draw  fame  to  her  feet. 
His  very  name  is  unknown  to  the  world.  Per 
haps,  as  "Mrs.  —  Something  —  Kogers,"  she 
illustrated  in  her  respectable  middle  age  that 
beneficent  process  by  which  Nature  frustrates 
the  educator,  and  converts  the  infant  Cleopatra 
or  the  infant  Hypatia  into  the  rotund  matron, 
of  whom  she  stands  permanently  in  need. 


THE  EDUCATOR 

The  Schoolmaster  is  abroad.  —  LOUD  BROUGHAM. 

IT  is  recorded  that  Boswell  once  said  to  Dr. 
Johnson,  "  If  you  had  had  children,  would  you 
have  taught  them  anything  ? "  and  that  Dr. 
Johnson,  out  of  the  fulness  of  his  wisdom,  made 
reply :  "  I  hope  that  I  should  have  willingly 
lived  on  bread  .and  water  to  obtain  instruction 
for  them ;  but  I  would  not  have  set  their 
future  friendship  to  hazard  for  the  sake  of 
thrusting  into  their  heads  knowledge  of  things 
for  which  they  might  have  neither  taste  nor 
necessity.  You  teach  your  daughters  the  dia 
meters  of  the  planets,  and  wonder,  when  you 
have  done  it,  that  they  do  not  delight  in  your 
company." 

It  is  the  irony  of  circumstance  that  Dr. 
Johnson  and  Charles  Lamb  should  have  been 
childless,  for  they  were  the  two  eminent  Eng 
lishmen  who,  for  the  best  part  of  a  century, 
respected  the  independence  of  childhood.  They 
were  the  two  eminent  Englishmen  who  could 


156  THE   EDUCATOR 

have  been  trusted  to  let  their  children  alone. 
Lamb  was  nine  years  old  when  Dr.  Johnson 
died.  He  was  twenty-seven  when  he  hurled  his 
impotent  anathemas  at  the  heads  of  "  the  cursed 
Barbauld  crew,"  "  blights  and  blasts  of  all  that 
is  human  in  man  and  child."  By  that  time  the 
educator's  hand  lay  heavy  on  schoolroom  and 
nursery.  In  France,  Rousseau  and  Mme.  de 
Genlis  had  succeeded  in  interesting  parents  so 
profoundly  in  their  children  that  French  babies 
led  a  vie  de  parade.  Their  toilets  and  their 
meals  were  as  open  to  the  public  as  were  the 
toilets  and  the  meals  of  royalty.  Their  bassi 
nettes  appeared  in  salons,  and  in  private  boxes 
at  the  playhouse  ;  and  it  was  an  inspiring  sight 
to  behold  a  French  mother  fulfilling  her  sacred 
office  while  she  enjoyed  the  spectacle  on  the 
stage.  In  England,  the  Edge  worths  and  Mr. 
Day  had  projected  a  system  of  education  which 
isolated  children  from  common  currents  of  life, 
placed  them  at  variance  with  the  accepted 
usages  of  society,  and  denied  them  that  whole 
some  neglect  which  is  an  important  factor  in 
self-development.  The  Edgeworthian  child  be 
came  the  pivot  of  the  household,  which  revolved 


THE  EDUCATOR  157 

warily  around  him,  instructing  him  whenever 
it  had  the  ghost  of  a  chance,  and  guarding  him 
from  the  four  winds  of  heaven.  He  was  not 
permitted  to  remain  ignorant  upon  any  subject, 
however  remote  from  his  requirements  ;  but  all 
information  came  filtered  through  the  parental 
mind,  so  that  the  one  thing  he  never  knew  was 
the  world  of  childish  beliefs  and  happenings. 
Intercourse  with  servants  was  prohibited  ;  and 
it  is  pleasant  to  record  that  Miss  Edgeworth 
found  even  Mrs.  Barbauld  a  dangerous  guide, 
because  little  Charles  of  the  "  Early  Lessons  " 
asks  his  nurse  to  dress  him  in  the  mornings. 
Such  a  personal  appeal,  showing  that  Charles 
was  on  speaking  terms  with  the  domestics,  was 
something  which,  in  Miss  Edge  worth's  opinion, 
no  child  should  ever  read ;  and  she  praises  the 
solicitude  of  a  mother  who  blotted  out  this,  and 
all  similar  passages,  before  confiding  the  book 
to  her  infant  son.  He  might — who  knows?— 
have  been  so  far  corrupted  as  to  ask  his  own 
nurse  to  button  him  up  the  next  day. 

Another  parent,  still  more  highly  commended, 
found  something  to  erase  in  all  her  children's 
books ;  and  Miss  Edgeworth  describes  with 


158  THE  EDUCATOR 

grave  complacency  this  pathetic  little  library, 
scored,  blotted,  and  mutilated,  before  being 
placed  on  the  nursery  shelves.  The  volumes 
were,  she  admits,  hopelessly  disfigured  ;  "  but 
shall  the  education  of  a  family  be  sacrificed  to 
the  beauty  of  a  page  ?  Few  books  can  safely 
be  given  to  children  without  the  previous  use 
of  the  pen,  the  pencil,  and  the  scissors.  These, 
in  their  corrected  state,  have  sometimes  a  few 
words  erased,  sometimes  half  a  page.  Some 
times  many  pages  are  cut  out." 

Even  now  one  feels  a  pang  of  pity  for  the 
little  children  who,  more  than  a  hundred  years 
ago,  were  stopped  midway  in  a  story  by  the 
absence  of  half  a  dozen  pages.  Even  now  one 
wonders  how  much  furtive  curiosity  was  awak 
ened  by  this  process  of  elimination.  To  hover 
perpetually  on  the  brink  of  the  concealed  and 
the  forbidden  does  not  seem  a  wholesome  situa 
tion  ;  and  a  careful  perusal  of  that  condemned 
classic,  "  Bluebeard,"  might  have  awakened 
this  excellent  mother  to  the  risks  she  ran. 
There  can  be  no  heavier  handicap  to  any  child 
than  a  superhumanly  wise  and  watchful  cus 
todian,  whether  the  custody  be  parental,  or 


THE  EDUCATOR  159 

relegated  to  some  phoenix  of  a  tutor  like  Mr. 
Barlow,  or  that  cock-sure  experimentalist  who 
mounts  guard  over  "  Emile,"  teaching  him  with 
elaborate  artifice  the  simplest  things  of  life. 
We  know  how  Tommy  Merton  fell  from  grace 
when  separated  from  Mr.  Barlow  ;  but  what 
would  have  become  of  Emile  if  "  Jean  Jacques  " 
had  providentially  broken  his  neck?  What 
would  have  become  of  little  Caroline  and  Mary 
in  Mary  Wollstonecraft's  "Original  Stories," 
if  Mrs.  Mason  —  who  is  Mr.  Barlow  in  petti 
coats  —  had  ceased  for  a  short  time  "  regulat 
ing  the  affections  and  forming  the  minds  "  of 
her  helpless  charges  ?  All  these  young  people 
are  so  scrutinized,  directed,  and  controlled, 
that  their  personal  responsibility  has  been 
minimized  to  the  danger  point.  In  the  name 
of  nature,  in  the  name  of  democracy,  in  the 
name  of  morality,  they  are  pushed  aside  from 
the  blessed  fellowship  of  childhood,  and  from 
the  beaten  paths  of  life. 

That  Mary  Wollstonecraft  should  have  writ 
ten  the  most  priggish  little  book  of  her  day  is 
one  of  those  pleasant  ironies  which  relieves  the 
tenseness  of  our  pity  for  her  fate.  Its  publica- 


160  THE  EDUCATOR 

tion  is  the  only  incident  of  her  life  which 
permits  the  shadow  of  a  smile;  and  even 
here  our  amusement  is  tempered  by  sympathy 
for  the  poor  innocents  who  were  compelled 
to  read  the  "  Original  Stories,"  and  to  whom 
even  Blake's  charming  illustrations  must  have 
brought  scant  relief.  The  plan  of  the  work  is 
one  common  to  most  juvenile  fiction  of  the 
period.  Caroline  and  Mary,  being  motherless, 
are  placed  under  the  care  of  Mrs.  Mason,  a 
lady  of  obtrusive  wisdom  and  goodness,  who 
shadows  their  infant  lives,  moralizes  over  every 
insignificant  episode,  and  praises  herself  with 
honest  assiduity.  If  Caroline  is  afraid  of  thun 
derstorms,  Mrs.  Mason  explains  that  she  fears 
no  tempest,  because  "  a  mind  is  never  truly 
great  until  the  love  of  virtue  overcomes  the 
fear  of  death."  If  Mary  behaves  rudely  to  a 
visitor,  Mrs.  Mason  contrasts  her  pupil's  con 
duct  with  her  own.  "  I  have  accustomed  my 
self  to  think  of  others,  and  what  they  will 
suffer  on  all  occasions,"  she  observes;  "and 
this  loathness  to  offend,  or  even  to  hurt  the 
feelings  of  another,  is  an  instantaneous  spring 
which  actuates  my  conduct,  and  makes  me 


THE  EDUCATOR  161 

kindly  affected  to  everything  that  breathes* 
.  .  .  Perhaps  the  greatest  pleasure  I  have  ever 
received  has  arisen  from  the  habitual  exercise 
of  charity  in  its  various  branches." 

The  stories  with  which  this  monitress  illus 
trates  her  precepts  are  drawn  from  the  edify 
ing  annals  of  the  neighbourhood,  which  is  rich 
in  examples  of  vice  and  virtue.  On  the  one 
hand  we  have  the  pious  Mrs.  Trueman,  the 
curate's  wife,  who  lives  in  a  rose-covered  cot 
tage,  furnished  with  books  and  musical  instru 
ments  ;  and  on  the  other,  we  have  uthe  profli 
gate  Lord  Sly,"  and  Miss  Jane  Fretful,  who 
begins  by  kicking  the  furniture  when  she  is  in 
a  temper,  and  ends  by  alienating  all  her  friends 
(including  her  doctor),  and  dying  unloved  and 
unlamented.  How  far  her  mother  should  be 
held  responsible  for  this  excess  of  peevishness, 
when  she  rashly  married  a  gentleman  named 
Fretful,  is  not  made  clear;  but  all  the  char 
acters  in  the  book  live  nobly,  or  ignobly,  up 
to  their  patronymics.  When  Mary  neglects  to 
wash  her  face — apparently  that  was  all  she 
ever  washed — or  brush  her  teeth  in  the  morn 
ings,  Mrs.  Mason  for  some  time  only  hints  her 


162  THE  EDUCATOR 

displeasure,  "  not  wishing  to  burden  her  with 
precepts";  and  waits  for  a  "glaring  example" 
to  show  the  little  girl  the  unloveliness  of  per 
manent  dirt.  This  example  is  soon  afforded 
by  Mrs.  Dowdy,  who  comes  opportunely  to 
visit  them,  and  whose  reluctance  to  perform 
even  the  simple  ablutions  common  to  the  period 
is  as  resolute  as  Slovenly  Peter's. 

In  the  matter  of  tuition,  Mrs.  Mason  is 
comparatively  lenient.  Caroline  and  Mary, 
though  warned  that  "  idleness  must  always  be 
intolerable,  because  it  is  only  an  irksome  con 
sciousness  of  existence  "  (words  which  happily 
have  no  meaning  for  childhood),  are,  on  the 
whole,  less  saturated  with  knowledge  than 
Miss  Edgeworth's  Harry  and  Lucy;  and 
Harry  and  Lucy  lead  rollicking  lives  by  con 
trast  with  "  Edwin  and  Henry,"  or  "  Anna 
and  Louisa,"  or  any  other  little  pair  of  heroes 
and  heroines.  Edwin  and  Henry  are  particu 
larly  ill  used,  for  they  are  supposed  to  be  en 
joying  a  holiday  with  their  father,  "  the  worthy 
Mr.  Friendly,"  who  makes  "  every  domestic 
incident,  the  vegetable  world,  sickness  and 
death,  a  real  source  of  instruction  to  his  be- 


THE   EDUCATOR  163 

loved  offspring."  How  glad  those  boys  must 
have  been  to  get  back  to  school !  Yet  they 
court  disaster  by  asking  so  many  questions. 
All  the  children  in  our  great-grandmothers' 
story-books  ask  questions.  All  lay  themselves 
open  to  attack.  If  they  drink  a  cup  of  choc 
olate,  they  want  to  know  what  it  is  made  of, 
and  where  cocoanuts  grow.  If  they  have  a  pud 
ding  for  dinner,  they  are  far  more  eager  to 
learn  about  sago  and  the  East  Indies  than  to 
eat  it.  They  put  intelligent  queries  concerning 
the  slave-trade,  and  make  remarks  that  might 
be  quoted  in  Parliament ;  yet  they  are  as  ignor 
ant  of  the  common  things  of  life  as  though 
new-born  into  the  world.  In  a  book  called 
"Summer  Rambles, or  Conversations  Instruct 
ive  and  Amusing,  for  the  Use  of  Children," 
published  in  1801,  a  little  girl  says  to  her 
mother:  "Vegetables?  I  do  not  know  what 
they  are.  Will  you  tell  me?"  And  the  mother 
graciously  responds:  "Yes,  with  a  great  deal 
of  pleasure.  Peas,  beans,  potatoes,  carrots,  tur 
nips,  and  cabbages  are  vegetables." 

At  least  the  good  lady's  information  was 
correct  as  far  as  it  went,  which  was  not  always 


1G4  THE  EDUCATOR 

the  case.  The  talented  governess  in  "Little 
Truths"  warns  her  pupils  not  to  swallow 
young  frogs  out  of  bravado,  lest  perchance 
they  should  mistake  and  swallow  a  toad,  which 
would  poison  them;  and  in  a  "  History  of 
Birds  and  Beasts,"  intended  for  very  young 
children,  we  find,  underneath  a  woodcut  of  a 
porcupine,  this  unwarranted  and  irrelevant  as 
sertion  :  — 

This  creature  shoots  his  pointed  quills, 

And  beasts  destroys,  and  men  ; 
But  more  the  ravenous -lawyer  kills 

With  his  half-quill,  the  pen. 

It  was  thus  that  natural  history  was  taught  in 
the  year  1767. 

The  publication  in  1798  of  Mr.  Edgeworth's 
"Practical  Education"  (Miss  Edgeworth  was 
responsible  for  some  of  the  chapters)  gave  a 
profound  impetus  to  child-study.  Little  boys 
and  girls  were  dragged  from  the  obscure  haven 
of  the  nursery,  from  their  hornbooks,  and  the 
casual  slappings  of  nursery-maids,  to  be  taught 
and  tested  in  the  light  of  day.  The  process  ap 
pears  to  have  been  deeply  engrossing.  Irregu 
lar  instruction,  object  lessons,  and  experimental 


THE  EDUCATOR  165 

play  afforded  scant  respite  to  parent  or  to  child. 
"  Square  and  circular  bits  of  wood,  balls,  cubes, 
and  triangles"  were  Mr.  Edgeworth's  first 
substitutes  for  toys ;  to  be  followed  by  "  card, 
pasteboard,  substantial  but  not  sharp-pointed 
scissors,  wire,  gum,  and  wax."  It  took  an 
active  mother  to  superintend  this  home  kinder 
garten,  to  see  that  the  baby  did  not  poke  the 
triangle  into  its  eye,  and  to  relieve  Tommy  at 
intervals  from  his  coating  of  gum  and  wax. 
When  we  read  further  that  "children  are  very 
fond  of  attempting  experiments  in  dyeing,  and 
are  very  curious  about  vegetable  dyes,"  we 
gain  a  fearful  insight  into  parental  pleasures 
and  responsibilities  a  hundred  years  ago. 

Text-book  knowledge  was  frowned  upon  by 
the  Edge  worths.  We  know  how  the  "  good 
French  governess  "  laughs  at  her  clever  pupil 
who  has  studied  the  "  Tablet  of  Memory,"  and 
who  can  say  when  potatoes  were  first  brought 
into  England,  and  when  hair  powder  was  first 
used,  and  when  the  first  white  paper  was  made. 
The  new  theory  of  education  banished  the 
"  Tablet  of  Memory,"  and  made  it  incumbent 
upon  parent  or  teacher  to  impart  in  conversa- 


166  THE  EDUCATOR 

tion  such  facts  concerning  potatoes,  powder, 
and  paper  as  she  desired  her  pupils  to  know. 
If  books  were  used,  they  were  of  the  deceptive 
order,  which  purposed  to  be  friendly  and  enter 
taining.  A  London  bookseller  actually  pro 
posed  to  Godwin  "a  delightful  work  for 
children,"  which  was  to  be  called  "  A  Tour 
through  Papa's  House."  The  object  of  this 
precious  volume  was  to  explain  casually  how 
and  where  Papa's  furniture  was  made,  his  car 
pets  were  woven,  his  curtains  dyed,  his  kitchen 
pots  and  pans  called  into  existence.  Even  God 
win,  who  was  not  a  bubbling  fountain  of  hu 
mour,  saw  the  absurdity  of  such  a  book ;  and 
recommended  in  its  place  "  Robinson  Crusoe," 
"if  weeded  of  its  Methodism"  (alas!  poor 
Robinson!),  "The  Seven  Champions  of  Chris 
tendom,"  and  "  The  Arabian  Nights." 

The  one  great  obstacle  in  the  educator's 
path  (it  has  not  yet  been  wholly  levelled)  was 
the  proper  apportioning  of  knowledge  between 
boys  and  girls.  It  was  hard  to  speed  the  male 
child  up  the  stony  heights  of  erudition  ;  but  it 
was  harder  still  to  check  the  female  child  at 
the  crucial  point,  and  keep  her  tottering  decor- 


THE  EDUCATOR  167 

ously  behind  her  brother.  In  1774  a  few  rash 
innovators  conceived  the  project  of  an  advanced 
school  for  girls  ;  one  that  should  approach  from 
afar  a  college  standard,  and  teach  with  thor 
oughness  what  it  taught  at  all ;  one  that  might 
be  trusted  to  broaden  the  intelligence  of 
women,  without  lessening  their  much-prized 
femininity.  It  was  even  proposed  that  Mrs. 
Barbauld,  who  was  esteemed  a  very  learned 
lady,  should  take  charge  of  such  an  establish 
ment  ;  but  the  plan  met  with  no  approbation 
at  her  hands.  In  the  first  place  she  held  that 
fifteen  was  not  an  age  for  school-life  and  study, 
because  then  "  the  empire  of  the  passions  is 
coming  on  "  ;  and  in  the  second  place  there  was 
nothing  she  so  strongly  discountenanced  as 
thoroughness  in  a  girl's  education.  On  this 
point  she  had  no  doubts,  and  no  reserves. 
"  Young  ladies,"  she  wrote,  "  ought  to  have 
only  such  a  general  tincture  of  knowledge  as 
to  make  them  agreeable  companions  to  a  man 
of  sense,  and  to  enable  them  to  find  rational 
entertainment  for  a  solitary  hour.  They  should 
gain  these  accomplishments  in  a  quiet  and  un 
observed  manner.  The  thefts  of  knowledge  in 


168  THE  EDUCATOR 

our  sex  are  connived  at,  only  while  carefully 
concealed  ;  and,  if  displayed,  are  punished  with 
disgrace.  The  best  way  for  women  to  acquire 
knowledge  is  from  conversation  with  a  father, 
a  brother,  or  a  friend  ;  and  by  such  a  course  of 
reading  as  they  may  recommend." 

There  was  no  danger  that  an  education  con 
ducted  on  these  lines  would  result  in  an  undue 
development  of  intelligence,  would  lift  the 
young  lady  above  "her  own  mild  and  chas 
tened  sphere."  In  justice  to  Mrs.  Barbauld  we 
must  admit  that  she  but  echoed  the  sentiments 
of  her  day.  "  Girls,"  said  Miss  Hannah  More, 
"  should  be  led  to  distrust  their  own  judg 
ments."  They  should  be  taught  to  give  up  their 
opinions,  and  to  avoid  disputes,  "  even  if  they 
know  they  are  right."  The  one  fact  impressed 
upon  the  female  child  was  her  secondary  place 
in  the  scheme  of  creation  ;  the  one  virtue  she 
was  taught  to  affect  was  delicacy ;  the  one  vice 
permitted  to  her  weakness  was  dissimulation. 
Even  her  play  was  not  like  her  brother's  play, 
—  a  reckless  abandonment  to  high  spirits ;  it 
was  play  within  the  conscious  limits  of  pro 
priety.  In  one  of  Mrs.  Trimmer's  books,  a 


THE  EDUCATOR  169 

model  mother  hesitates  to  allow  her  eleven- 
year-old  daughter  to  climb  three  rounds  of  a 
ladder,  and  look  into  a  robin's  nest,  four  feet 
from  the  ground.  It  was  not  a  genteel  thing 
for  a  little  girl  to  do.  Even  her  schoolbooks 
were  not  like  her  brother's  schoolbooks.  They 
were  carefully  adapted  to  her  limitations.  Mr. 
Thomas  Gisborne,  who  wrote  a  much-admired 
work  entitled  "  An  Enquiry  into  the  Duties  of 
the  Female  Sex,"  was  of  the  opinion  that  geo 
graphy  might  be  taught  to  girls  without  re 
serve  ;  but  that  they  should  learn  only  "  select 
parts"  of  natural  history,  and,  in  the  way  of 
science,  only  a  few  "  popular  and  amusing 
facts."  A  "Young  Lady's  Guide  to  Astron 
omy  "  was  something  vastly  different  from  the 
comprehensive  system  imparted  to  her  brother. 
In  a  very  able  and  subtle  little  book  called 
"  A  Father's  Legacy  to  his  Daughters,"  by  Dr. 
John  Gregory  of  Edinburgh,  — 

He  whom  each  virtue  fired,  each  grace  refined, 
Friend,  teacher,  pattern,  darling  of  mankind  ! l 

—  we  find  much  earnest  counsel  on  this  subject. 
Dr.  Gregory  was  an  affectionate  parent.    He 

1  Beattie's  Minstrel. 


170  THE  EDUCATOR 

grudged  bis  daughters  no  material  and  no  in 
tellectual  advantage ;  but  be  was  well  aware 
tbat  by  too  great  liberality  be  imperilled  tbeir 
worldly  prospects.  Therefore,  although  he  de 
sired  them  to  be  well  read  and  well  informed, 
he  bade  them  never  to  betray  their  knowledge 
to  the  world.  Therefore,  although  he  desired 
them  to  be  strong  and  vigorous,  —  to  walk,  to 
ride,  to  live  much  in  the  open  air,  —  he  bade 
them  never  to  make  a  boast  of  their  endur 
ance.  Rude  health,  no  less  than  scholarship, 
was  the  exclusive  prerogative  of  men.  His 
deliberate  purpose  was  to  make  them  rational 
creatures,  taking  clear  and  temperate  views  of 
life ;  but  he  warned  them  all  the  more  ear 
nestly  against  the  dangerous  indulgence  of 
seeming  wiser  than  their  neighbours.  "  Be 
even  cautious  in  displaying  your  good  sense," 
writes  this  astute  and  anxious  father.  "  It  will 
be  thought  you  assume  a  superiority  over  the 
rest  of  your  company.  But  if  you  happen  to 
have  any  learning,  keep  it  a  profound  secret, 
especially  from  men,  who  are  apt  to  look  with 
a  jealous  and  malignant  eye  on  a  woman  of 
great  parts  and  cultivated  understanding." 


THE  EDUCATOR  171 

This  is  plain  speaking.  And  it  must  be  re 
membered  that  "learning"  was  not  in  1774, 
nor  for  many  years  afterwards,  the  compre 
hensive  word  it  is  to-day.  A  young  lady  who 
could  translate  a  page  of  Cicero  was  held  to 
be  learned  to  the  point  of  pedantry.  What 
reader  of  "  Coelebs  "  —  if  "  Coelebs  "  still  boasts 
a  reader  —  can  forget  that  agitating  moment 
when,  through  the  inadvertence  of  a  child,  it 
is  revealed  to  the  breakfast  table  that  Lucilla 
Stanley  studies  Latin  every  morning  with  her 
father.  Overpowered  by  the  intelligence,  Ccelebs 
casts  "  a  timid  eye  "  upon  his  mistress,  who  is 
covered  with  confusion.  She  puts  the  sugar 
into  the  cream  jug,  and  the  tea  into  the  sugar 
basin;  and  finally,  unable  to  bear  the  mingled 
awe  and  admiration  awakened  by  this  disclos 
ure  of  her  scholarship,  she  slips  out  of  the 
room,  followed  by  her  younger  sister,  and  com 
miserated  by  her  father,  who  knows  what  a 
shock  her  native  delicacy  has  received.  Had 
the  fair  Lucilla  admitted  herself  to  be  an  ex 
pert  tight-rope  dancer,  she  could  hardly  have 
created  more  consternation. 

No  wonder  Dr.  Gregory  counselled  his  daugh- 


172  THE  EDUCATOR 

ters  to  silence.  Lovers  less  generous  than 
Ccelebs  might  well  have  been  alienated  by  such 
disqualifications.  "  Oh,  how  lovely  is  a  maid's 
ignorance  ! ' '  sighs  Rousseau,  contemplating 
with  rapture  the  many  things  that  Sophie  does 
not  know.  "  Happy  the  man  who  is  destined 
to  teach  her.  She  will  never  aspire  to  be  the 
tutor  of  her  husband,  but  will  be  content  to 
remain  his  pupil.  She  will  not  endeavour  to 
mould  his  tastes,  but  will  relinquish  her  own. 
She  will  be  more  estimable  to  him  than  if  she 
were  learned.  It  will  be  his  pleasure  to  en 
lighten  her." 

This  was  a  well-established  point  of  view, 
and  English  Sophies  were  trained  to  meet  it 
with  becoming  deference.  They  heard  no  idle 
prating  about  an  equality  which  has  never 
existed,  and  which  never  can  exist.  "  Had  a 
third  order  been  necessary,"  said  an  eighteenth- 
century  schoolmistress  to  her  pupils,  "  doubt 
less  one  would  have  been  created,  a  midway 
kind  of  being."  In  default  of  such  a  connect 
ing  link,  any  impious  attempt  to  bridge  the 
chasm  between  the  sexes  met  with  the  failure 
it  deserved.  When  Mrs.  Knowles,  a  Quaker 


THE   EDUCATOR  173 

lady,  not  destitute  of  self-esteem,  observed  to 
Boswell  that  she  hoped  men  and  women  would 
be  equal  in  another  world,  that  gentleman  re 
plied  with  spirit :  "  Madam,  you  are  too  am 
bitious.  We  might  as  well  desire  to  be  equal 
with  the  angels." 

The  dissimulation  which  Dr.  Gregory  urged 
upon  his  daughters,  and  which  is  the  safe 
guard  of  all  misplaced  intelligence,  extended  to 
matters  more  vital  than  Latin  and  astronomy. 
He  warned  them,  as  they  valued  their  earthly 
happiness,  never  to  make  a  confidante  of  a 
married  woman,  "  especially  if  she  lives  happily 
with  her  husband  "  ;  and  never  to  reveal  to 
their  own  husbands  the  excess  of  their  wifely 
affection.  "  Do  not  discover  to  any  man  the 
full  extent  of  your  love,  no,  not  although  you 
marry  him.  That  sufficiently  shows  your  pre 
ference,  which  is  all  he  is  entitled  to  know.  If 
he  has  delicacy,  he  will  ask  for  no  stronger 
proof  of  your  affection,  for  your  sake ;  if  he 
has  sense,  he  will  not  ask  it,  for  his  own.  Vio 
lent  love  cannot  subsist,  at  least  cannot  be 
expressed,  for  any  time  together  on  both  sides. 
Nature  in  this  case  has  laid  the  reserve  on 


174  THE   EDUCATOR 

you."  In  the  passivity  of  women,  no  less  than 
in  their  refined  duplicity,  did  this  acute  ob 
server  recognize  the  secret  strength  of  sex. 

A  vastly  different  counsellor  of  youth  was 
Mrs.  West,  who  wrote  a  volume  of  "  Letters 
to  a  Young  Lady  "  (the  young  lady  was  Miss 
Maunsell,  and  she  died  after  reading  them), 
which  were  held  to  embody  the  soundest  mo 
rality  of  the  day.  Mrs.  West  is  as  dull  as  Dr. 
Gregory  is  penetrating,  as  verbose  as  he  is 
laconic,  as  obvious  as  he  is  individual.  She 
devotes  many  agitated  pages  to  theology,  and 
many  more  to  irrefutable,  though  one  hopes 
unnecessary,  arguments  in  behalf  of  female 
virtue.  But  she  also  advises  a  careful  submis 
sion,  a  belittling  insincerity,  as  woman's  best 
safeguards  in  life.  It  is  not  only  a  wife's  duty 
to  tolerate  her  husband's  follies,  but  it  is  the 
part  of  wisdom  to  conceal  from  him  any  know 
ledge  of  his  derelictions.  Bad  he  may  be ;  but 
it  is  necessary  to  his  comfort  to  believe  that 
his  wife  thinks  him  good.  "  The  lordly  nature 
of  man  so  strongly  revolts  from  the  suspicion 
of  inferiority,"  explains  this  excellent  monitress, 
"that  a  susceptible  husband  can  never  feel 


>'      OF    T 

THE  EDUCATOR  175 

easy  in  the  society  of  his  wife  when  he  knows 
that  she  is  acquainted  with  -his'  vices,  though 
he  is  well  assured  that  her  prudence,  gener 
osity,  and  affection  will  prevent  her  from  be 
ing  a  severe  accuser."  One  is  reminded  of  the 
old  French  gentleman  who  said  he  was  aware 
that  he  cheated  at  cards,  but  he  disliked  any 
allusion  to  the  subject. 

To  be  "easy"  in  a  wife's  society,  to  relax 
spiritually  as  well  as  mentally,  and  to  be  im 
mune  from  criticism ;  —  these  were  the  privi 
leges  which  men  demanded,  and  which  well- 
trained  women  were  ready  to  accord.  In  1808 
the  "  Belle  Assemblee  "  printed  a  model  letter, 
which  purported  to  come  from  a  young  wife 
whose  husband  had  deserted  her  and  her  child 
for  the  more  lively  society  of  his  mistress.  It 
expressed  in  pathetic  language  the  sentiments 
then  deemed  correct,  —  sentiments  which  em 
bodied  the  patience  of  Griselda,  without  her 
acquiescence  in  fate.  The  wife  tells  her  husband 
that  she  has  retired  to  the  country  for  economy, 
and  to  avoid  scandalous  gossip ;  that  by  care 
ful  management  she  is  able  to  live  on  the  pit 
tance  he  has  given  her ;  that  "  little  Emily "  is 


176  THE  EDUCATOR 

working  a  pair  of  ruffles  for  him;  that  his 
presence  would  make  their  poor  cottage  seem 
a  palace.  "  Pardon  my  interrupting  you,"  she 
winds  up  with  ostentatious  meekness.  "  I  mean 
to  give  you  satisfaction.  Though  I  am  deeply 
wronged  by  your  error,  I  am  not  resentful.  I 
wish  you  all  the  happiness  of  which  you  are 
capable,  and  am  your  once  loved  and  still 
affectionate,  Emilia." 

That  last  sentence  is  not  without  dignity, 
and  certainly  not  without  its  sting.  One  doubts 
whether  Emilia's  husband,  for  all  her  promises 
and  protestations,  could  ever  again  have  felt 
perfectly  "easy"  in  his  wife's  society.  He 
probably  therefore  stayed  away,  and  soothed 
his  soul  elsewhere.  "  We  can  with  tranquillity 
forgive  in  ourselves  the  sins  of  which  no  one 


THE  PIETIST 

They  go  the  fairest  way  to  Heaven  that  would  serve  God 
without  a  Hell.  —  Eeligio  Medici. 

"  How  cutting  it  is  to  be  the  means  of  bringing 
children  into  the  world  to  be  the  subjects  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Darkness,  to  dwell  with  Divils 
and  Damned  Spirits." 

In  this  temper  of  pardonable  regret  the 
mother  of  William  Godwin  wrote  to  her  erring 
son ;  and  while  the  maternal  point  of  view 
deserves  consideration  (no  parent  could  be 
expected  to  relish  such  a  prospect),  the  letter 
is  noteworthy  as  being  one  of  the  few  written 
to  Godwin,  or  about  Godwin,  which  forces  us  to 
sympathize  with  the  philosopher.  The  boy  who 
was  reproved  for  picking  up  the  family  cat  on 
Sunday  —  "demeaning  myself  with  such  pro- 
faneness  on  the  Lord's  day"  —  was  little  likely 
to  find  his  religion  "all  pure  profit."  His  ac 
count  of  the  books  he  read  as  a  child,  and  of 
his  precocious  and  unctuous  piety,  is  probably 
over-emphasized  for  the  sake  of  colour ;  but  the 


178  THE  PIETIST 

Evangelical  literature  of  his  day,  whether  de 
signed  for  young  people  or  for  adults,  was  of 
a  melancholy  and  discouraging  character.  The 
"  Pious  Deaths  of  Many  Godly  Children  "  (sad 
monitor  of  the  Godwin  nursery)  appears  to 
have  been  read  off  the  face  of  the  earth ;  but 
there  have  descended  to  us  sundry  volumes  of 
a  like  character,  which  even  now  stab  us  with 
pity  for  the  little  readers  long  since  laid  in 
their  graves.  The  most  frivolous  occupation  of 
the  good  boy  in  these  old  story-books  is  search 
ing  the  Bible,  "  with  mamma's  permission,"  for 
texts  in  which  David  "  praises  God  for  the 
weather."  More  serious-minded  children  weep 
floods  of  tears  because  they  are  "  lost  sinners." 
In  a  book  of  "  Sermons  for  the  Very  Young," 
published  by  the  Vicar  of  Walthamstow  in  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century,  we  find  the  fall 
of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  selected  as  an  appro 
priate  theme  for  infancy,  and  its  lessons  driven 
home  with  all  the  force  of  a  direct  personal 
application.  "  Think,  little  child,  of  the  fearful 
story.  The  wrath  of  God  is  upon  them.  Do 
they  now  repent  of  their  sins  ?  It  is  all  too 
late.  Do  they  cry  for  mercy  ?  There  is  none  to 


THE  PIETIST  179 

hear  them.  .  .  .  Your  heart,  little  child,  is  full 
of  sin.  You  think  of  what  is  not  right,  and 
then  you  wish  it,  and  that  is  sin.  .  .  .  Ah, 
what  shall  sinners  do  when  the  last  day  comes 
upon  them  ?  What  will  they  think  when  God 
shall  punish  them  forever  ?  " 

Children  brought  up  on  these  lines  passed 
swiftly  from  one  form  of  hysteria  to  another, 
from  self-exaltation  and  the  assurance  of  grace 
to  fears  which  had  no  easement.  There  is  no 
thing  more  terrible  in  literature  than  Borrow's 
account  of  the  Welsh  preacher  who  believed 
that  when  he  was  a  child  of  seven  he  had  com 
mitted  the  unpardonable  sin,  and  whose  whole 
life  was  shadowed  by  fear.  At  the  same  time 
that  little  William  Godwin  was  composing 
beautiful  death-bed  speeches  for  the  possible 
edification  of  his  parents  and  neighbours,  we 
find  Miss  Elizabeth  Carter  writing  to  Mrs. 
Montagu  about  her  own  nephew,  who  realized, 
at  seven  years  of  age,  how  much  he  and  all 
creatures  stood  in  need  of  pardon ;  and  who, 
being  ill,  pitifully  entreated  his  father  to  pray 
that  his  sins  might  be  forgiven.  Commenting 
upon  which  incident,  the  reverent  Montagu 


180  THE  PIETIST 

Pennington,  who  edited  Miss  Carter's  letters, 
bids  us  remember  that  it  reflects  more  credit 
on  the  parents  who  brought  their  child  up  with 
so  just  a  sense  of  religion  than  it  does  on  the 
poor  infant  himself.  "  Innocence,"  says  the  in 
flexible  Mr.  Stanley,  in  "  Coelebs  in  Search  of 
a  Wife,"  "  can  never  be  pleaded  as  a  ground  of 
acceptance,  because  the  thing  does  not  exist." 

With  the  dawning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
came  the  controversial  novel ;  and  to  under 
stand  its  popularity  we  have  but  to  glance  at 
the  books  which  preceded  it,  and  compared  to 
which  it  presented  an  animated  and  contentious 
aspect.  One  must  needs  have  read  "  Elements 
of  Morality  "  at  ten,  and  "  Strictures  on  Fe 
male  Education  "  at  fifteen,  to  be  able  to  relish 
"  Father  Clement "  at  twenty.  Sedate  young 
women,  whose  lightest  available  literature  was 
"  Ccelebs,"  or  "  Hints  towards  forming  the 
Character  of  a  Princess,"  and  who  had  been 
presented  on  successive  birthdays  with  Mrs. 
Chapone's  "  Letters  on  the  Improvement  of  the 
Mind,"  and  Mrs.  West's  "  Letters  to  a  Young 
Lady,"  and  Miss  Hamilton's  "  Letters  to  the 
Daughter  of  a  Nobleman,"  found  a  natural  re- 


THE   PIETIST  181 

lief  in  studying  the  dangers  of  dissent,  or  the 
secret  machinations  of  the  Jesuits.  Many  a  dull 
hour  was  quickened  into  pleasurable  apprehen 
sion  of  Jesuitical  intrigues,  from  the  days  when 
Sarah.  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  stoutly  refused 
to  take  cinchona  —  a  form  of  quinine  —  be 
cause  it  was  then  known  as  Jesuit's  bark,  and 
might  be  trusted  to  poison  a  British  constitu 
tion,  to  the  days  when  Sir  William  Pepys  wrote 
in  all  seriousness  to  Hannah  More  :  "  You  sur 
prise  me  by  saying  that  your  good  Archbishop 
has  been  in  danger  from  the  Jesuits ;  but  I  be 
lieve  they  are  concealed  in  places  where  they 
are  less  likely  to  be  found  than  in  Ireland." 

Just  what  they  were  going  to  do  to  the  good 
Archbishop  does  not  appear,  for  Sir  William 
at  this  point  abruptly  abandons  the  prelate  to 
tell  the  story  of  a  Norwich  butcher,  who  for 
some  mysterious  and  unexplained  reason  was 
hiding  from  the  inquisitors  of  Lisbon.  No  dig 
nitary  was  too  high,  no  orphan  child  too  low  to 
be  the  objects  of  a  Popish  plot.  Miss  Carter 
writes  to  Mrs.  Montagu,  in  1775,  about  a  little 
foundling  whom  Mrs.  Chapone  had  placed  at 
service  with  some  country  neighbours. 


182  THE   PIETIST 

"  She  behaves  very  prettily,  and  with  great 
affection  to  the  people  with  whom  she  is  living," 
says  Miss  Carter.  "One  of  the  reasons  she 
assigns  for  her  fondness  is  that  they  give  her 
enough  food,  which  she  represents  as  a  deficient 
article  in  the  workhouse  ;  and  says  that  on  Fri 
days  particularly  she  never  had  any  dinner. 
Surely  the  parish  officers  have  not  made  a 
Papist  the  mistress!  If  this  is  not  the  case, 
the  loss  of  one  dinner  in  a  week  is  of  no  great 
consequence." 

To  the  poor  hungry  child  it  was  probably  of 
much  greater  consequence  than  the  theological 
bias  of  the  matron.  Nor  does  a  dinnerless  Friday 
appear  the  surest  way  to  win  youthful  converts 
to  the  fold.  But  devout  ladies  who  had  read 
Canon  Seward's  celebrated  tract  on  the  "  Com 
parison  between  Paganism  and  Popery"  (in 
which  he  found  little  to  choose  between  them) 
were  well  on  their  guard  against  the  insidious 
advances  of  Rome.  "When  I  had  no  religion 
at  all,"  confesses  Cowper  to  Lady  Hesketh,  "  I 
had  yet  a  terrible  dread  of  the  Pope."  The 
worst  to  be  apprehended  from  Methodists  was 
their  lamentable  tendency  to  enthusiasm,  and 


THE  PIETIST  183 

their  ill-advised  meddling  with  the  poor.  It  is 
true  that  a  farmer  of  Cheddar  told  Miss  Patty 
More  that  a  Methodist  minister  had  once 
preached  under  his  mother's  best  apple  tree,  and 
that  the  sensitive  tree  had  never  borne  another 
apple ;  but  this  was  an  extreme  case.  The  Ched 
dar  vestry  resolved  to  protect  their  orchards 
from  blight  by  stoning  the  next  preacher  who 
invaded  the  parish,  and  their  example  was  fol 
lowed  with  more  or  less  fervour  throughout 
England.  In  a  quiet  letter  written  from  Margate 
(1768),  by  the  Kev.  John  Lyon,  we  find  this 
casual  allusion  to  the  process :  - 

"  We  had  a  Methodist  preacher  hold  forth 
last  night.  I  came  home  just  as  he  had  finished. 
I  believe  the  poor  man  fared  badly,  for  I  saw, 
as  I  passed,  eggs,  stones,  etc.,  fly  pretty  thick." 

It  was  all  in  the  day's  work.  The  Kev.  Lyon, 
who  was  a  scholar  and  an  antiquarian,  and  who 
wrote  an  exhaustive  history  of  Dover,  had  no 
further  interest  in  matters  obviously  aloof  from 
his  consideration. 

This  simple  and  robust  treatment,  so  quiet 
ing  to  the  nerves  of  the  practitioners,  was  un 
serviceable  for  Papists,  who  did  not  preach  in 


184  THE  PIETIST 

the  open ;  and  a  great  deal  of  suppressed  irri 
tation  found  no  better  outlet  than  print.  It 
appears  to  have  been  a  difficult  matter  in  those 
days  to  write  upon  any  subject  without  revert 
ing  sooner  or  later  to  the  misdeeds  of  Rome. 
Miss  Seward  pauses  in  her  praise  of  Blair's 
sermons  to  lament  the  "  boastful  egotism  "  of 
St.  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  who  seems  tolerably 
remote;  and  Mr.  John  Dyer,  when  wrapped 
in  peaceful  contemplation  of  the  British  wool- 
market,  suddenly  and  fervently  denounces  the 
"  black  clouds  "  of  bigotry,  and  the  "  fiery  bolts 
of  superstition,"  which  lay  desolate  "  Papal 
realms."  In  vain  Mr.  Edgeworth,  stooping  from 
his  high  estate,  counselled  serenity  of  mind,  and 
that  calm  tolerance  born  of  a  godlike  certitude ; 
in  vain  he  urged  the  benignant  attitude  of  in 
fallibility.  "  The  absurdities  of  Popery  are  so 
manifest,"  he  wrote,  "  that  to  be  hated  they 
need  but  to  be  seen.  But  for  the  peace  and 
prosperity  of  this  country,  the  misguided  Cath 
olic  should  not  be  rendered  odious ;  he  should 
rather  be  pointed  out  as  an  object  of  compas 
sion.  His  ignorance  should  not  be  imputed  to 
him  as  a  crime ;  nor  should  it  be  presupposed 


THE  PIETIST  185 

that  his  life  cannot  be  right,  whose  tenets  are 
erroneous.  Thank  God  that  I  am  a  Protestant ! 
should  be  a  mental  thanksgiving,  not  a  public 
taunt." 

Mr.  Edgeworth  was  nearly  seventy  when 
the  famous  "  Protestant's  Manual ;  or,  Papacy 
Unveiled  "  (endeared  forever  to  our  hearts  by 
its  association  with  Mrs.  Varden  and  Miggs), 
bowled  over  these  pleasant  and  peaceful  argu 
ments.  There  was  no  mawkish  charity  about 
the  "  Manual,"  which  made  its  way  into  every 
corner  of  England,  stood  for  twenty  years  on 
thousands  of  British  book-shelves,  and  was 
given  as  a  reward  to  children  so  unfortunate 
as  to  be  meritorious.  It  sold  for  a  shilling  (nine 
shillings  a  dozen  when  purchased  for  distribu 
tion),  so  Mrs.  Varden's  two  post-octavo  volumes 
must  have  been  a  special  edition.  Keviewers 
recommended  it  earnestly  to  parents  and  teach 
ers  ;  and  it  was  deemed  indispensable  to  all 
who  desired  "  to  preserve  the  rising  generation 
from  the  wiles  of  Papacy  and  the  snares  of 
priestcraft.  They  will  be  rendered  sensible  of 
the  evils  and  probable  consequences  of  Catholic 
emancipation ;  and  be  confirmed  in  those  opin- 


186  THE  PIETIST 

ions,  civil,  political,  and  religious,  which  have 
hitherto  constituted  the  happiness  and  formed 
the  strength  of  their  native  country." 

This  was  a  strong  appeal.  A  universal  un 
easiness  prevailed,  manifesting  itself  in  hostility 
to  innovations,  however  innocent  and  orthodox. 
Miss  Hannah  More's  Sunday  Schools  were 
stoutly  opposed,  as  savouring  of  Methodism  (a 
religion  she  disliked),  and  of  radicalism,  for 
which  she  had  all  the  natural  horror  of  a  well- 
to-do,  middle-class  Christian.  Even  Mrs.  AVest, 
an  oppressively  pious  writer,  misdoubted  the 
influence  of  Sunday  Schools,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  was  difficult  to  keep  the  lower 
orders  from  learning  more  than  was  good  for 
them.  "  Hard  toil  and  humble  diligence  are 
indispensably  needful  to  the  community,"  said 
this  excellent  lady.  "  Writing  and  accounts 
appear  superfluous  instructions  in  the  humblest 
walks  of  life  ;  and,  when  imparted  to  servants, 
have  the  general  effect  of  making  them  am 
bitious,  and  disgusted  with  the  servile  offices 
which  they  are  required  to  perform." 

Humility  was  a  virtue  consecrated  to  the 
poor,  to  the  rural  poor  especially ;  and  what 


THE  PIETIST  187 

with  Methodism  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  jar 
ring  echoes  of  the  French  Revolution  on  the 
other,  the  British  ploughman  was  obviously 
growing  less  humble  every  day.  Crabbe,  who 
cherished  no  illusions,  painted  him  in  colours 
grim  enough  to  fill  the  reader  with  despair ; 
but  Miss  More  entertained  a  feminine  convic 
tion  that  Bibles  and  flannel  waistcoats  fulfilled 
his  earthly  needs.  In  all  her  stories  and  tracts 
the  villagers  are  as  artificial  as  the  happy  peas 
antry  of  an  old-fashioned  opera.  They  group 
themselves  deferentially  around  the  squire  and 
the  rector ;  they  wear  costumes  of  uncompro 
mising  rusticity ;  and  they  sing  a  chorus  of 
praise  to  the  kind  young  ladies  who  have 
brought  them  a  bowl  of  soup.  It  is  curious  to 
turn  from  this  atmosphere  of  abasement,  from 
perpetual  curtsies  and  the  lowliest  of  lowly 
virtues,  to  the  journal  of  the  painter  Haydon, 
who  was  a  sincerely  pious  man,  yet  who  can 
not  restrain  his  wonder  and  admiration  at  see 
ing  the  Duke  of  Wellington  behave  respectfully 
in  church.  That  a  person  so  august  should 
stand  when  the  congregation  stood,  and  kneel 
when  the  congregation  knelt,  seemed  to  Hay- 


188  THE  PIETIST 

don  an  immense  condescension.  "  Here  was  the 
greatest  hero  in  the  world,"  he  writes  ecstatic 
ally,  "  who  had  conquered  the  greatest  genius, 
prostrating  his  heart  and  being  before  his  God 
in  his  venerable  age,  and  praying  for  His 
mercy." 

It  is  the  most  naive  impression  on  record. 
That  the  Duke  and  the  Duke's  scullion  might 
perchance  stand  equidistant  from  the  Almighty 
was  an  idea  which  failed  to  present  itself  to 
Haydon's  ardent  mind. 

The  pious  fiction  put  forward  in  the  interest 
of  dissent  was  more  impressive,  more  emotional, 
more  belligerent,  and,  in  some  odd  way,  more 
human  than  "  Coelebs,"  or  "  The  Shepherd  of 
Salisbury  Plain."  Miss  Grace  Kennedy's  stories 
are  as  absurd  as  Miss  More's,  and  —  though 
the  thing  may  sound  incredible  —  much  duller  ; 
but  they  give  one  an  impression  of  painful 
earnestness,  and  of  that  heavy  atmosphere  en 
gendered  by  too  close  a  contemplation  of  Hell. 
A  pious  Christian  lady,  with  local  standards,  a 
narrow  intelligence,  and  a  comprehensive  ignor 
ance  of  life,  is  not  by  election  a  novelist.  Nei 
ther  do  polemics  lend  themselves  with  elasticity 


THE  PIETIST  189 

to  the  varying  demands  of  fiction.  There  are, 
in  fact,"  few  things  less  calculated  to  instruct 
the  intellect  or  to  enlarge  the  heart  than  the 
perusal  of  controversial  novels. 

But  Miss  Kennedy  had  at  least  the  striking 
quality  of  temerity.  She  was  not  afraid  of  be 
ing  ridiculous.  She  was  undaunted  in  her  ig 
norance.  And  she  was  on  fire  with  all  the  bitter 
ardour  of  the  separatist.  Miss  More,  on  the 
contrary,  entertained  a  judicial  mistrust  for 
fervour,  fanaticism,  the  rush  of  ardent  hopes 
and  fears  and  transports,  for  all  those  vehe 
ment  emotions  which  are  apt  to  be  disconcert 
ing  to  ladies  of  settled  views  and  incomes. 
Her  model  Christian,  Candidus,  "avoids  en 
thusiasm  as  naturally  as  a  wise  man  avoids 
folly,  or  as  a  sober  man  shuns  extravagance. 
He  laments  when  he  encounters  a  real  enthus 
iast,  because  he  knows  that,  even  if  honest,  he 
is  pernicious."  In  the  same  guarded  spirit, 
Mrs.  Montagu  praises  the  benevolence  of  Lady 
Bab  Montagu  and  Mrs.  Scott,  who  had  the 
village  girls  taught  plain  sewing  and  the  cate 
chism.  "  These  good  works  are  often  performed 
by  the  Methodist  ladies  in  the  heat  of  enthus- 


190  THE  PIETIST 

iasm ;  but,  thank  God !  my  sister's  is  a  calm 
and  rational  piety."  "  Surtout  point  de  zele," 
was  the  dignified  motto  of  the  day. 

There  is  none  of  this  chill  sobriety  about 
Miss  Kennedy's  Bible  Christians,  who,  a  hun 
dred  years  ago,  preached  to  a  listening  world. 
They  are  aflame  with  a  zeal  which  knows  no 
doubts  and  recognizes  no  forbearance.  Their 
methods  are  akin  to  those  of  the  irrepressible 
Miss  J—  — ,  who  undertook,  Bible  in  hand, 
the  conversion  of  that  pious  gentleman,  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  ;  or  of  Miss  Lewis,  who 
went  to  Constantinople  to  convert  that  equally 
pious  gentleman,  the  Sultan.  Miss  Kennedy's 
heroes  and  heroines  stand  ready  to  convert  the 
world.  They  would  delight  in  expounding  the 
Scriptures  to  the  Pope  and  the  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople.  Controversy  affords  their  only 
conversation.  Dogma  of  the  most  unrelenting 
kind  is  their  only  food  for  thought.  Piety  pro 
vides  their  only  avenue  for  emotions.  Elderly 
bankers  weep  profusely  over  their  beloved  pas 
tor's  eloquence,  and  fashionable  ladies  melt  into 
tears  at  the  inspiring  sight  of  a  village  Sunday 
School.  Young  gentlemen,  when  off  on  a  holi- 


THE  PIETIST  191 

day,  take  with  them  "no  companion  but  a 
Bible  "  ;  and  the  lowest  reach  of  worldliness  is 
laid  bare  when  an  unconverted  mother  asks 
her  daughter  if  she  can  sing  something  more 
cheerful  than  a  hymn.  Conformity  to  the 
Church  of  England  is  denounced  with  unspar 
ing  warmth ;  and  the  Church  of  Rome  is  hon 
oured  by  having  a  whole  novel,  the  once  famous 
"  Father  Clement,"  devoted  to  its  permanent 
downfall. 

Dr.  Greenhill,  who  has  written  a  sympa 
thetic  notice  of  Miss  Kennedy  in  the  "  Dic 
tionary  of  National  Biography,"  considers  that 
"Father  Clement"  was  composed  "with  an 
evident  wish  to  state  fairly  the  doctrines  and 
practices  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  even 
while  the  authoress  strongly  disapproves  of 
them";  —  a  point  of  view  which  compels  us 
to  believe  that  the  biographer  spared  himself 
(and  who  shall  blame  him  ?)  the  reading  of  this 
melancholy  tale.  That  George  Eliot,  who  spared 
herself  nothing,  was  well  acquainted  with  its 
context,  is  evidenced  by  the  conversation  of 
the  ladies  who,  in  "Janet's  Repentance,"  meet 
to  cover  and  label  the  books  of  the  Paddiford 


192  THE  PIETIST 

Lending  Library.  Miss  Pratt,  the  autocrat  of 
the  circle,  observes  that  the  story  of  "  Father 
Clement "  is,  in  itself,  a  library  on  the  errors 
of  Romanism,  whereupon  old  Mrs.  Linnet  very 
sensibly  replies  :  "  One  'ud  think  there  did  n't 
want  much  to  drive  people  away  from  a  reli 
gion  as  makes  'em  walk  barefoot  over  stone 
floors,  like  that  girl  in  '  Father  Clement,'  send 
ing  the  blood  up  to  the  head  frightful.  Any 
body  might  see  that  was  an  unnat'ral  creed." 

So  they  might ;  and  a  more  unnatural  creed 
than  Father  Clement's  Catholicism  was  never 
devised  for  the  extinction  of  man's  flickering 
reason.  Only  the  mental  debility  of  the  Claren- 
ham  family  can  account  for  their  holding  such 
views  long  enough  to  admit  of  their  being  con 
verted  from  them  by  the  Montagus.  Only  the 
militant  spirit  of  the  Clarenham  chaplain  and 
the  Montagu  chaplain  makes  possible  several 
hundred  pages  of  polemics.  Montagu  Bibles 
run  the  blockade,  are  discovered  in  the  hands 
of  truth-seeking  Clarenhams,  and  are  hurled 
back  upon  the  spiritual  assailants.  The  deter 
mination  of  Father  Dennis  that  the  Scriptures 
shall  be  quoted  in  Latin  only  (a  practice  which 


THE  PIETIST  193 

is  scholarly  but  inconvenient),  and  the  deter 
mination  of  Edward  Montagu  "  not  to  speak 
Latin  in  the  presence  of  ladies,"  embarrass 
social  intercourse.  Catherine  Clarenham,  the 
young  person  who  walks  barefooted  over  stone 
floors,  has  been  so  blighted  by  this  pious  exer 
cise  that  she  cannot,  at  twenty,  translate  the 
Pater  Noster  or  Ave  Maria  into  English,  and 
remains  a  melancholy  illustration  of  Latinity. 
When  young  Basil  Clarenham  shows  symptoms 
of  yielding  to  Montagu  arguments,  and  begins 
to  want  a  Bible  of  his  own,  he  is  spirited  away 
to  Rome,  and  confined  in  a  monastery  of  the 
Inquisition,  where  he  spends  his  time  reading 
"  books  forbidden  by  the  Inquisitors,"  and  espe 
cially  "a  New  Testament  with  the  prohibitory 
mark  of  the  Holy  Office  upon  it,"  which  the 
weak-minded  monks  have  amiably  placed  at  his 
disposal.  Indeed,  the  monastery  library,  to  which 
the  captive  is  made  kindly  welcome,  seems  to 
have  been  well  stocked  with  interdicted  litera 
ture  ;  and,  after  browsing  in  these  pastures  for 
several  tranquil  months,  Basil  tells  his  aston 
ished  hosts  that  their  books  have  taught  him 
that  "  the  Romish  Church  is  the  most  corrupt 


194  THE  PIETIST 

of  all  churches  professing  Christianity."  Hav 
ing  accomplished  this  unexpected  but  happy 
result,  the  Inquisition  exacts  from  him  a  sol 
emn  vow  that  he  will  never  reveal  its  secrets, 
and  sends  him  back  to  England,  where  he  loses 
no  time  in  becoming  an  excellent  Protestant. 
His  sister  Maria  follows  his  example  (her  vir 
tues  have  pointed  steadfastly  to  this  conclu 
sion)  ;  but  Catherine  enters  a  convent,  full  of 
stone  floors  and  idolatrous  images,  where  she 
becomes  a  utool"  of  the  Jesuits,  and  says  her 
prayers  in  Latin  until  she  dies. 

No  wonder  "  Father  Clement  "  went  through 
twelve  editions,  and  made  its  authoress  as  fa 
mous  in  her  day  as  the  authoress  of  "  Elsie 
Dinsmore  "  is  in  ours.  No  wonder  the  Paddi- 
ford  Lending  Library  revered  its  sterling  worth. 
And  no  wonder  it  provoked  from  Catholics  re 
prisals  which  Dr.  Greenhill  stigmatizes  as  "  flip 
pant."  To-day  it  lives  by  virtue  of  half  a  dozen 
mocking  lines  in  George  Eliot's  least-read  story: 
but  for  a  hundred  years  its  progeny  has  infested 
the  earth,  —  a  crooked  progeny,  like  Peer  Gynt's, 
which  can  never  be  straightened  into  sincerity, 
or  softened  into  good- will.  "  For  first  the  Church 


THE  PIETIST  195 

of  Rome  condemneth  us,  we  likewise  them,"  ob 
serves  Sir  Thomas  Browne  with  equanimity; 
"  and  thus  we  go  to  Heaven  against  each  others' 
wills,  conceits,  and  opinions." 


THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL 

Why,  by  dabbling  in  those  accursed  Annuals,  I  have  be 
come  a  by-word  of  infamy  all  over  the  kingdom.  —  CHARLES 
LAMB. 

THE  great  dividing  line  between  books  that 
are  made  to  be  read  and  books  that  are  made 
to  be  bought  is  not  the  purely  modern  thing  it 
seems.  We  can  trace  it,  if  we  try,  back  to  the 
first  printing-presses,  which  catered  indulgently 
to  hungry -scholars  and  to  noble  patrons;  and 
we  can  see  it  in  another  generation  separating 
"  Waverley  "  and  "  The  Corsair,"  which  every 
body  knew  by  heart,  from  the  gorgeous  "An 
nual"  (bound  in  Lord  Palmerston's  cast-off 
waistcoats,  hinted  Thackeray),  which  formed  a 
decorative  feature  of  well-appointed  English 
drawing-rooms.  The  perfectly  natural  thing  to 
do  with  an  unreadable  book  is  to  give  it  away ; 
and  the  publication,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of 
a  century,  of  volumes  which  fulfilled  this  one 
purpose  and  no  other  is  a  pleasant  proof,  if 
proof  were  needed,  of  the  business  principles 


THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL  197 

which    underlay  the    enlightened   activity   of 
publishers. 

The  wave  of  sentimentality  which  submerged 
England  when  the  clear-headed,  hard-hearted 
eighteenth  century  had  done  its  appointed  work, 
and  lay  a-dying,  the  prodigious  advance  in  gen 
tility  from  the  days  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley 
Montagu  to  the  days  of  the  Countess  of  Bless- 
ington,  found  their  natural  expression  in  letters. 
It  was  a  period  of  emotions  which  were  not  too 
deep  for  words,  and  of  decorum  which  meas 
ured  goodness  by  conventionalities.  Turn 
where  we  will,  we  see  a  tear  in  every  eye,  or  a 
simper  of  self-complacency  on  every  lip.  Moore 
wept  when  he  beheld  a  balloon  ascension  at 
Tivoli,  because  he  had  not  seen  a  balloon  since 
he  was  a  little  boy.  The  excellent  Mr.  Hall 
explained  in  his  "  Memories  of  a  Long  Life  " 
that,  owing  to  Lady  Blessington's  anomalous 
position  with  Count  D'Orsay,  "Mrs.  Hall  never 
accompanied  me  to  her  evenings,  though  she 
was  a  frequent  day  caller."  Criticism  was  con 
trolled  by  politics,  and  sweetened  by  gallantry. 
The  Whig  and  Tory  reviewers  supported  their 
respective  candidates  to  fame,  and  softened 


198  THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL 

their  masculine  sternness  to  affability  when 
Mrs.  Hemans  or  Miss  Landon,  "  the  Sappho 
of  the  age,"  contributed  their  glowing  numbers 
to  the  world.  Miss  Landon  having  breathed  a 
poetic  sigh  in  the  "Amulet"  for  1832,  a  re 
viewer  in  "  Fraser's"  magnanimously  observed  : 
"  This  gentle  and  fair  young  lady,  so  unde 
servedly  neglected  by  critics,  we  mean  to  take 
under  our  special  protection."  Could  it  ever 
have  lain  within  the  power  of  any  woman,  even 
a  poetess,  to  merit  such  condescension  as  this  ? 
Of  a  society  so  organized,  the  Christmas  an 
nual  was  an  appropriate  and  ornamental  fea 
ture.  It  was  costly,  —  a  guinea  or  a  guinea 
and  a  half  being  the  usual  subscription.  It 
was  richly  bound  in  crimson  silk  or  pea-green 
levant ;  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  wras  less  mag 
nificent.  It  was  as  free  from  stimulus  as  eau 
sucrce.  It  was  always  genteel,  and  not  infre 
quently  aristocratic,  —  having  been  known  to 
rise  in  happy  years  to  the  schoolboy  verses  of 
a  royal  duke.  It  was  made,  like  Peter  Pindar's 
razors,  to  sell,  and  it  was  bought  to  be  given 
away ;  at  which  point  its  career  of  usefulness 
was  closed.  Its  languishing  steel  engravings  of 


THE  ACCURSED   ANNUAL  199 

Corfu,  Ayesha,  The  Suliote  Mother,  and  The 
Wounded  Brigand,  may  have  beguiled  a  few 
heavy  moments  after  dinner  ;  and  perhaps  little 
children  in  frilled  pantalets  and  laced  slippers 
peeped  between  the  gorgeous  covers,  to  marvel 
at  the  Sultana's  pearls,  or  ask  in  innocence  who 
was  the  dying  Haidee.  Death,  we  may  remark, 
was  always  a  prominent  feature  of  annuals. 
Their  artists  and  poets  vied  with  one  another 
in  the  selection  of  mortuary  subjects.  Charles 
Lamb  was  first  "  hooked  into  the  '  Gem  '  "  with 
some  lines  on  the  editor's  dead  infant.  From  a 
partial  list,  extending  over  a  dozen  years,  I 
cull  this  funeral  wreath  :  — 

The  Dying  Child.   Poem. 

The  Orphans.   Steel  engraving. 

The  Orphan's  Tears.  Poem. 

The  Gypsy's  Grave.    Steel  engraving. 

The  Lonely  Grave.  Poem. 

On  a  Child's  Grave.  Poem. 

The  Dying  Mother  to  her  Infant.  Poem. 

Blithesome  reading  for  the  Christmas-tide  ! 

The  annual  was  as  orthodox  as  it  was  aris 
tocratic.  "  The  Shepherd  of  Salisbury  Plain  " 
was  not  more  edifying.  "  The  Washerwoman 


200  THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL 

of  Finchley  Common  "  was  less  conspicuously 
virtuous.  Here  in  "The  Winter's  Wreath"  is 
a  long  poem  in  blank  verse,  by  a  nameless 
clergyman,  on  "The  Efficacy  of  Religion." 
Here  in  the  "  Amulet,"  Mrs.  Hemans,  "  lead 
ing  the  way  as  she  deserves  to  do"  (I  quote 
from  the  "Monthly  Review"),  "clothes  in  her 
own  pure  and  fascinating  language  the  invita 
tions  which  angels  whisper  into  mortal  ears." 
And  here  in  the  "  Forge t-Me-Not,"  Leontine 
hurls  mild  defiance  at  the  spirit  of  doubt:  — 

Thou  sceptic  of  the  hardened  brow, 

Attend  to  Nature's  cry  ! 
Her  sacred  essence  breathes  the  glow 

O'er  that  thou  wouldst  deny ; 

—  an  argument  which  would  have  carried  con 
viction  to  Huxley's  soul,  had  he  been  more 
than  eight  years  old  when  it  was  written.  Poor 
Coleridge,  always  in  need  of  a  guinea  or  two, 
was  bidden  to  write  some  descriptive  lines  for 
the  "Keepsake,"  on  an  engraving  by  Parris 
of  the  Garden  of  Boccaccio  ;  a  delightful  pic 
ture  of  nine  ladies  and  three  gentlemen  picnick 
ing  in  a  park,  with  arcades  as  tall  as  aque 
ducts,  a  fountain  as  vast  as  Niagara,  and 


THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL  201 

butterflies  twice  the  size  of  the  rabbits.  Cole 
ridge,  exempt  by  nature  from  an  unserviceable 
sense  of  humour,  executed  this  commission  in 
three  pages  of  painstaking  verse,  and  was 
severely  censured  for  mentioning  "  in  terms 
not  sufficiently  guarded,  one  of  the  most  im 
pure  and  mischievous  books  that  could  find  its 
way  into  the  hands  of  an  innocent  female." 

The  system  of  first  securing  an  illustration, 
and  then  ordering  a  poem  to  match  it,  seemed 
right  and  reasonable  to  the  editor  of  the  an 
nual,  who  paid  a  great  deal  for  his  engravings, 
and  little  or  nothing  for  his  poetry.  Sometimes 
the  poet  was  not  even  granted  a  sight  of  the 
picture  he  was  expected  to  describe.  We  find 
Lady  Blessington  writing  to  Dr.  William 
Beattie, — the  best-natured  man  of  his  day,  — 
requesting  "  three  or  four  stanzas  "  for  an  an 
nual  called  "  Buds  and  Blossoms,"  which  was 
to  contain  portraits  of  the  children  of  noble 
families.  The  particular  "  buds  "  whose  unfold 
ing  he  was  asked  to  immortalize  were  the  three 
sons  of  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch ;  and  it  was  gently 
hinted  that  "  an  allusion  to  the  family  would 
add  interest  to  the  subject  "  ;  —  in  plain  words, 


202  THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL 

that  a  little  well-timed  flattery  might  be  trusted 
to  expand  the  sales.  Another  year  the  same 
unblushing  petitioner  was  even  more  hardy  in 
her  demand. 

"Will  you  write  me  a  page  of  verse  for  the 
portrait  of  Miss  Forester  ?  The  young  lady  is 
seated  with  a  little  dog  on  her  lap,  which  she 
looks  at  rather  pensively.  She  is  fair,  with 
light  hair,  and  is  in  mourning." 

Here  is  an  inspiration  for  a  poet.  A  picture, 
which  he  has  not  seen,  of  a  young  lady  in 
mourning  looking  pensively  at  a  little  dog! 
And  poor  Beattie  was  never  paid  a  cent  for 
these  effusions.  His  sole  rewards  were  a  few 
words  of  thanks,  and  Lady  Blessington's  cards 
for  parties  he  was  too  ill  to  attend. 

More  business-like  poets  made  a  specialty  of 
fitting  pictures  with  verses,  as  a  tailor  fits  cus 
tomers  with  coats.  A  certain  Mr.  Harvey, 
otherwise  lost  to  fame,  was  held  to  be  unri 
valled  in  this  art.  For  many  years  his  "  chaste 
and  classic  pen "  supplied  the  annuals  with 
flowing  stanzas,  equally  adapted  to  the  timor 
ous  taste  of  editors,  and  to  the  limitations  of 
the  "  innocent  females  "  for  whom  the  volumes 


THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL  203 

were  predestined.  "  Mr.  Harvey  embodies  in 
two  or  three  lines  the  expression  of  a  whole 
picture,"  says  an  enthusiastic  reviewer,  "  and  at 
the  same  time  turns  his  inscription  into  a  little 
gem  of  poetry."  As  a  specimen  gem,  I  quote 
one  of  four  verses  accompanying  an  engraving 
called  Morning  Dreams,  —  a  young  woman 
reclining  on  a  couch,  and  simpering  vapidly  at 
the  curtains :  - 

She  has  been  dreaming1,  and  her  thoughts  are  still 
On  their  far  journey  in  the  land  of  dreams ; 

The  forms  we  call  —  but  may  not  chase  —  at  will, 
And  sweet  low  voices,  soft  as  distant  streams. 

This  is  a  fair  sample  of  the  verse  supplied  for 
Christmas  annuals,  which,  however  "  chaste 
and  classic,"  was  surely  never  intended  to  be 
read.  It  is  only  right,  however,  to  remember 
that  Thackeray's  "  Piscator  and  Piscatrix " 
was  written  at  Lady  Blessington's  behest,  to 
accompany  Wattier's  engraving  of  The  Happy 
Anglers ;  and  that  Thackeray  told  Locker  he 
was  so  much  pleased  with  this  picture,  and  so 
engrossed  with  his  own  poem,  that  he  forgot  to 
shave  for  the  two  whole  days  he  was  working 
at  it.  To  write  "  good  occasional  verse,"  by 


204  THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL 

which  he  meant  verse  begged  or  ordered  for 
some  such  desperate  emergency  as  Lady  Bless- 
ington's,  was,  in  his  eyes,  an  intellectual  feat. 
It  represented  difficulties  overcome,  like  those 
wonderful  old  Italian  frescoes  fitted  so  harmo 
niously  into  unaccommodating  spaces.  Nothing 
can  be  more  charming  than  "  Piscator  and  Pis- 
catrix,"  and  nothing  can  be  more  insipid  than 
the  engraving  which  inspired  the  li vely  rhymes : 

As  on  this  pictured  page  I  look, 
This  pretty  tale  of  line  and  hook, 
As  though  it  were  a  novel-book, 

Amuses  and  engages  : 
I  know  them  both,  the  boy  and'girl, 
She  is  the  daughter  of  an  Earl, 
The  lad  (that  has  his  hair  in  curl) 

My  lord  the  County's  page  is. 

A  pleasant  place  for  such  a  pair  I 
The  fields  lie  basking  in  the  glare ; 
No  breath  of  wind  the  heavy  air 

Of  lazy  summer  quickens. 
Hard  by  you  see  the  castle  tall, 
The  village  nestles  round  the  wall, 
As  round  about  the  hen,  its  small 

Young  progeny  of  chickens. 

The  verses  may  be  read  in  any  edition  of 
Thackeray's  ballads  ;  but  when  we  have  hunted 


THE  ACCURSED   ANNUAL  205 

up  the  "pictured  page"  in  a  mouldy  old  "Keep 
sake,"  and  see  an  expressionless  girl,  a  feature 
less  boy,  an  indistinguishable  castle,  and  no 
village,  we  are  tempted  to  agree  with  Charles 
Lamb,  who  swore  that  he  liked  poems  to  ex 
plain  pictures,  and  not  pictures  to  illustrate 
poems.  "  Your  wood-cut  is  a  rueful  lignum 
mortis" 

There  was  a  not  unnatural  ambition  on  the 
part  of  publishers  and  editors  to  secure  for 
their  annuals  one  or  two  names  of  repute,  with 
» which  to  leaven  the  mass  of  mediocrity.  It 
mattered  little  if  the  distinguished  writer  con 
scientiously  contributed  the  feeblest  offspring 
of  his  pen  ;  that  was  a  reasonable  reckoning,  — 
distinguished  writers  do  the  same  to-day ;  but 
it  mattered  a  great  deal  if,  as  too  often  hap 
pened,  he  broke  his  word,  and  failed  to  con 
tribute  anything.  Then  the  unhappy  editor 
was  compelled  to  publish  some  such  apologetic 
note  as  this,  from  the  "Amulet"  of  1833.  "  The 
first  sheet  of  the  '  Amulet '  was  reserved  for  my 
friend  Mr.  Bulwer,  who  had  kindly  tendered 
me  his  assistance ;  but,  in  consequence  of  vari 
ous  unavoidable  circumstances"  (a  pleasure 


206  THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL 

trip  on  the  Rhine),  "he  has  been  compelled  to 
postpone  his  aid  until  next  year."  On  such 
occasions,  the  "  reserved  "  pages  were  filled  by 
some  veteran  annualist,  like  Mr.  Alaric  At- 
tila  Watts,  editor  of  the  "Literary  Souvenir  "; 
or  perhaps  Mr.  Thomas  Haynes  Bailey,  he  who 
wrote  "  I'd  be  a  Butterfly,"  and  "  Gaily  the 
Troubadour,"  was  persuaded  to  warble  some 
such  appropriate  sentiment  as  this  in  the 
"  Forget-Me-Not ":  — 

It  is  a  book  we  christen  thus, 
Less  fleeting  than  tire  flower ; 

And  't  will  recall  the  past  to  us 
With  talisraanic  power ; 

which  was  a  true  word  spoken  in  rhyme.  No 
thing  recalls  that  faded  past,  with  its  simpering 
sentimentality,  its  reposeful  ethics,  its  shut-in 
standards,  and  its  differentiation  of  the  mascu 
line  and  feminine  intellects,  like  the  yellow 
pages  of  an  annual. 

Tom  Moore,  favourite  of  gods  and  men,  was 
singled  out  by  publishers  as  the  lode-star  of 
their  destinies,  as  the  poet  who  could  be  best 
trusted  to  impart  to  the  "  Amethyst "  or  the 
"  Talisman "  (how  like  Pullman  cars  they 


THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL  207 

sound  ! )  that  "  elegant  lightness  "  which  be 
fitted  its  mission  in  life.  His  accounts  of  the 
repeated  attacks  made  on  his  virtue,  and  the 
repeated  repulses  he  administered,  fill  by  no 
means  the  least  amusing  pages  of  his  journal. 
The  first  attempt  was  made  by  Orne,  who,  in 
1826,  proposed  that  Moore  should  edit  a  new 
annual  on  the  plan  of  the  "  Souvenir  " ;  and 
who  assured  the  poet  —  always  as  deep  in  dif 
ficulties  as  Micawber  —  that,  if  the  enterprise 
proved  successful,  it  would  yield  him  from  five 
hundred  to  a  thousand  pounds  a  year.  Moore, 
dazzled  but  not  duped,  declined  the  task ;  and 
the  following  summer,  the  engraver  Heath 
made  him  a  similar  proposition,  but  on  more 
assured  terms.  Heath  was  then  preparing  to 
launch  upon  the  world  of  fashion  his  gorgeous 
"  Keepsake  "  -  "  the  toy-shop  of  literature," 
Lockhart  called  it ;  and  he  offered  Moore,  first 
five  hundred,  and  then  seven  hundred  pounds  a 
year,  if  he  would  accept  the  editorship.  Seven 
hundred  pounds  loomed  large  in  the  poet's 
fancy,  but  pride  forbade  the  bargain.  The 
author  of  "  Lalla  Rookh  "  could  not  consent  to 
bow  his  laurelled  head,  and  pilot  the  feeble 


208  THE   ACCURSED   ANNUAL 

Fatimas  and  Zelicas,  the  noble  infants  in  coral 
necklets,  and  the  still  nobler  ladies  with  pearl 
pendants  on  their  brows,  into  the  safe  harbour 
of  boudoir  and  drawing-room.  He  made  this 
clear  to  Heath,  who,  nothing  daunted,  set  off 
at  once  for  Abbotsford,  and  laid  his  proposals 
at  the  feet  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  adding  to  his 
bribe  another  hundred  pounds. 

Scott,  the  last  man  in  Christendom  to  have 
undertaken  such  an  office,  or  to  have  succeeded 
in  it,  softened  his  refusal  with  a  good-natured 
promise  to  contribute  to  the  "Keepsake"  when 
it  was  launched.  He  was  not  nervous  about  his 
literary  standing,  and  he  had  no  sensitive  fear 
of  lowering  it  by  journeyman's  work.  "  I  have 
neither  the  right  nor  the  wish,"  he  wrote  once 
to  Murray,  "  to  be  considered  above  a  common 
labourer  in  the  trenches."  Moore,  however,  was 
far  from  sharing  this  modest  unconcern.  When 
Reynolds,  on  whom  the  editorship  of  the 
"  Keepsake "  finally  devolved,  asked  him  for 
some  verses,  he  peremptorily  declined.  Then 
began  a  system  of  pursuit  and  escape,  of  as 
sault  and  repulse,  which  casts  the  temptations 
of  St.  Anthony  into  the  shade.  "  By  day  and 


THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL  209 

night,"  so  Moore  declares,  Reynolds  was  "  after  " 
him,  always  increasing  the  magnitude  of  his 
bribe.  At  last  he  forced  a  check  for  a  hundred 
pounds  into  the  poet's  empty  pocket  (for  all 
the  world  like  a  scene  in  Caran  d' Ache's  "  His- 
toire  d'un  Cheque  "),  imploring  in  return  a  hun 
dred  lines  of  verse.  But  Moore's  virtue  —  or 
his  vanity  —  was  impregnable.  "The  task  was 
but  light,  and  the  money  would  have  been  con 
venient,"  he  confesses  ;  "  but  I  forced  it  back 
on  him  again.  The  fact  is,  it  is  my  name 
brings  these  offers,  and  my  name  would  suffer 
by  accepting  them." 

One  might  suppose  that  the  baffled  tempter 
would  now  have  permanently  withdrawn,  save 
that  the  strength  of  tempters  lies  in  their 
never  knowing  when  they  are  beaten.  Three 
years  later,  Heath  renewed  the  attack,  propos 
ing  that  Moore  should  furnish  all  the  letter 
press,  prose  and  verse,  of  the  "  Keepsake  "  for 
1832,  receiving  in  payment  the  generous  sum 
of  one  thousand  pounds.  Strange  to  say,  Moore 
took  rather  kindly  to  this  appalling  suggestion, 
admitted  he  liked  it  better  than  its  predeces 
sors,  and  consented  to  think  the  matter  over 


210  THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL 

for  a  fortnight.  In  the  end,  however,  he  ad 
hered  to  his  original  determination  to  hold  him 
self  virgin  of  annuals ;  and  refused  the  thousand 
pounds,  which  would  have  paid  all  his  debts, 
only  to  fall,  as  fall  men  must,  a  victim  to  female 
blandishments.  He  was  cajoled  into  writing 
some  lines  for  the  "  Casket,"  edited  by  Mrs. 
Blencoe;  and  had  afterwards  the  pleasure  of 
discovering  that  the  astute  lady  had  added 
to  her  list  of  attractions  another  old  poem 
of  his,  which,  to  avoid  sameness,  she  oblig 
ingly  credited  to  Lord  Byron  ;  —  enough  to 
make  that  ill-used  poet  turn  uneasily  in  his 
grave. 

Charles  Lamb's  detestation  of  annuals  dates 
naturally  enough  from  the  hour  he  was  first 
seduced  into  becoming  a  contributor  ;  and  every 
time  he  lapsed  from  virtue,  his  rage  blazed  out 
afresh.  When  his  ill-timed  sympathy  for  a 
bereaved  parent  —  and  that  parent  an  editor 
—  landed  him  in  the  pages  of  the  "  Gem," 
he  wrote  to  Barton  in  an  access  of  ill-himiour 
which  could  find  no  phrases  sharp  enough  to 
feed  it. 

"  I  hate  the  paper,  the  type,  the  gloss,  the 


THE   ACCURSED  ANNUAL  211 

dandy  plates,  the  names  of  contributors  poked 
up  into  your  eyes  in  the  first  page,  and  whistled 
through  all  the  covers  of  magazines,  the  bare 
faced  sort  of  emulation,  the  immodest  candi- 
dateship,  brought  into  so  little  space  ;  in  short 
I  detest  to  appear  in  an  annual.  .  .  .  Don't 
think  I  set  up  for  being  proud  011  this  point ;  I 
like  a  bit  of  flattery  tickling  my  vanity  as  well 
as  any  one.  But  these  pompous  masquerades 
without  masks  (naked  names  or  faces)  I  hate. 
So  there  's  a  bit  of  my  mind." 

"  Frippery,"  "  frumpery,"  "  show  and  empti 
ness,"  are  the  mildest  epithets  at  Lamb's  com 
mand,  as  often  as  he  laments  his  repeated  falls 
from  grace ;  and  a  few  years  before  his  death, 
when  that  "  dumb  soporifical  good-for-nothing- 
ness  "  (curse  of  the  Enfield  lanes)  weighted  his 
pen,  and  dulled  the  lively  processes  of  his  brain, 
he  writes  with  poignant  melancholy :  - — 

"  I  cannot  scribble  a  long  letter.  I  am,  when 
not  on  foot,  very  desolate,  and  take  no  interest 
in  anything,  scarce  hate  anything  but  annuals." 
It  is  the  last  expression  of  a  just  antipathy,  an 
instinctive  clinging  to  something  which  can  be 
reasonably  hated  to  the  end. 


212  THE  ACCURSED   ANNUAL 

The  most  pretentious  and  the  most  aristo 
cratic  of  the  annuals  was  the  ever  famous  "  Book 
of  Beauty,"  edited  for  many  years  by  the  Count 
ess  of  Blessington.  Resting  on  a  solid  founda 
tion  of  personal  vanity  (a  superstructure  never 
known  to  fail),  it  reached  a  heroic  measure  of 
success,  and  yielded  an  income  which  permitted 
the  charming  woman  who  conducted  it  to  live 
as  far  beyond  her  means  as  any  leader  of  the 
fashionable  world  in  London.  It  was  estimated 
that  Lady  Blessington  earned  by  the  "gorgeous 
inanities  "  she  edited,  and  by  the  vapid  tales 
she  wrote,  an  income  of  from  two  thousand  to 
three  thousand  pounds ;  but  she  would  never 
have  been  paid  so  well  for  her  work  had  she 
not  supported  her  social  position  by  an  expendi 
ture  of  twice  that  sum.  Charles  Greville,  who 
spares  no  scorn  he  can  heap  upon  her  editorial 
methods,  declares  that  she  attained  her  ends 
"  by  puffing  and  stuffing,  and  untiring  indus 
try,  by  practising  on  the  vanity  of  some  and 
the  good-nature  of  others.  And  though  I  never 
met  with  any  one  who  had  read  her  books, 
except  the  '  Conversations  with  Byron,'  which 
are  too  good  to  be  hers,  they  are  unquestion- 


THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL  213 

ably  a  source  of  considerable  profit,  and  she 
takes  her  place  confidently  and  complacently 
as  one  of  the  literary  celebrities  of  her  day." 

Greville's  instinctive  unkindness' leaves  him 
often  wide  of  the  mark,  but  on  this  occasion 
we  can  only  say  that  he  might  have  spoken  his 
truths  more  humanely.  If  Lady  Blessington 
helped  to  create  the  demand  which  she  sup 
plied,  if  she  turned  her  friendships  to  account, 
and  made  of  hospitality  a  means  to  an  end  (a 
line  of  conduct  not  unknown  to-day),  she  worked 
with  unsparing  diligence,  and  with  a  sort  of 
desperate  courage  for  over  twenty  years.  Rival 
Books  of  Beauty  were  launched  upon  a  sur 
feited  market,  but  she  maintained  her  prece 
dence.  For  ten  years  she  edited  the  "Keep 
sake,"  and  made  it  a  source  of  revenue,  until 
the  unhappy  bankruptcy  and  death  of  Heath. 
In  her  annuals  we  breathe  the  pure  air  of  ducal 
households,  and  consort  with  the  peeresses  of 
England,  turning  condescendingly  now  and  then 
to  contemplate  a  rusticity  so  obviously  artificial, 
it  can  be  trusted  never  to  offend.  That  her 
standard  of  art  (she  had  no  standard  of  letters) 
was  acceptable  to  the  British  public  is  proved 


214  THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL 

by  the  rapturous  praise  of  critics  and  reviewers. 
Thackeray,  indeed,  professed  to  think  the 
sumptuous  ladies,  who  loll  and  languish  in  the 
pages  of  the  year-book,  underclad  and  indec 
orous  ;  but  this  was  in  the  spirit  of  hypercriti- 
cism.  Hear  rather  how  a  writer  in  "Eraser's 
Magazine"  describes  in  a  voice  trembling  with 
emotion  the  opulent  charms  of  one  of  the 
Countess  of  Blessington's  "  Beauties  "  :  - 

"There  leans  the  tall  and  imperial  form  of 
the  enchantress,  with  raven  tresses  surmounted 
by  the  cachemire  of  sparkling  red;  while  her 
ringlets  flow  in  exuberant  waves  over  the  full- 
formed  neck;  and  barbaric  pearls,  each  one 
worth  a  king's  ransom,  rest  in  marvellous  con 
trast  with  her  dark  and  mysterious  loveliness." 

"  Here  's  richness  ! "  to  quote  our  friend  Mr. 
Squeers.  Here 's  something  of  which  it  is  hard 
to  think  a  public  could  ever  tire.  Yet  sixteen 
years  later,  when  the  Countess  of  Blessington 
died  in  poverty  and  exile,  but  full  of  courage 
to  the  end,  the  "  Examiner  "  tepidly  observed 
that  the  probable  extinction  of  the  year-book 
"  would  be  the  least  of  the  sad  regrets  attend 
ing  her  loss." 


THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL  215 

For  between  1823  and  1850  three  hundred 
annuals  had  been  published  in  England,  and 
the  end  was  very  near.  Exhausted  nature  was 
crying  for  release.  It  is  terrible  to  find  an  able 
and  honest  writer  like  Miss  Mitford  editing  a 
preposterous  volume  called  the  "  Iris,"  of  in 
human  bulk  and  superhuman  inanity ;  a  book 
which  she  well  knew  could  never,  under  any 
press  of  circumstances,  be  read  by  mortal  man 
or  woman.  There  were  annuals  to  meet  every 
demand,  and  to  please  every  class  of  purchaser. 
Comic  annuals  for  those  who  hoped  to  laugh ; 
a  "  Botanic  Annual "  for  girls  who  took  coun 
try  walks  with  their  governess ;  an  "  Oriental 
Annual"  for  readers  of  Byron  and  Moore;  a 
"  Landscape  Annual "  for  lovers  of  nature  ; 
"  The  Christian  Keepsake  "  for  ladies  of  seri 
ous  minds  ;  and  "  The  Protestant  Annual "  for 
those  who  feared  that  Christianity  might  pos 
sibly  embrace  the  Romish  Church.  There  were 
five  annuals  for  English  children  ;  from  one  of 
which,  "  The  Juvenile  Keepsake,"  I  quote  these 
lines,  so  admirably  adapted  to  the  childish 
mind.  Newton  is  supposed  to  speak  them  in 
his  study :  — 


216  THE  ACCURSED  ANNUAL 

Pure  and  ethereal  essence,  fairest  light, 
Come  hither,  and  before  my  watchful  eyes 
Disclose  thy  hidden  nature,  and  unbind 
Thy  mystic,  fine-attenuated  parts  ; 
That  so,  intently  marking1,  I  the  source 
May  learn  of  colours,  Nature's  matchless  gifts. 

There  are  three  pages  of  this  poem,  all  in 
the  same  simple  language,  from  which  it  is  fair 
to  infer  that  the  child's  annual,  like  its  grown 
up  neighbour,  was  made  to  be  bought,  not  read. 


OUR   ACCOMPLISHED   GREAT-GRAND 
MOTHER 

Next  to  mere  idleness,  I  think  knotting  is  to  be  reckoned 
in  the  scale  of  insignificance.  —  DR.  JOHNSON. 

READERS  of  Dickens  (which  ought  to  mean  all 
men  and  women  who  have  mastered  the  Eng 
lish  alphabet)  will  remember  how  that  esti 
mable  schoolmistress,  Miss  Monflathers,  eluci 
dated  Dr.  Watts's  masterpiece,  which  had  been 
quoted  somewhat  rashly  by  a  teacher.  " '  The 
little  busy  bee,'  "  said  Miss  Monflathers,  draw 
ing  herself  up,  "  is  applicable  only  to  genteel 
children. 

In  books,  or  work,  or  healthful  play, 

is  quite  right  as  far  as  they  are  concerned ; 
and  the  work  means  painting  on  velvet,  fancy 
needlework,  or  embroidery." 

It  also  meant,  in  the  good  Miss  Monflath- 
ers's  day,  making  filigree  baskets  that  would 
not  hold  anything,  Ionic  temples  of  Bristol- 
board,  shell  flowers,  and  paper  landscapes.  It 
meant  pricking  pictures  with  pins,  taking  "  iin- 


218          OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER 

pressions"  of  butterflies'  wings  on  sheets  of 
gummed  paper,  and  messing  with  strange,  mys 
terious  compounds  called  diaphanie  and  poti- 
chomanie,  by  means  of  which  a  harmless  glass 
tumbler  or  a  respectable  window-pane  could  be 
turned  into  an  object  of  desolation.  Indeed, 
when  the  genteel  young  ladies  of  this  period 
were  not  reading  "  Merit  opposed  to  Fascina 
tion  ;  exemplified  in  the  story  of  Eugenio,"  or 
"An  Essay  on  the  Refined  Felicity  which  may 
arise  from  the  Marriage  Contract,"  they  were 
cultivating  what  were  then  called  "  ornamental 
arts,"  but  which  later  on  became  known  as 
"  accomplishments."  "  It  is  amazing  to  me," 
says  that  most  amiable  of  sub-heroes,  Mr.  Bing- 
ley,  "  how  young  ladies  can  have  patience  to 
be  so  very  accomplished  as  they  all  are.  They 
paint  tables,  cover  screens,  and  net  purses.  I 
scarcely  know  any  one  who  cannot  do  all  this  ; 
and  I  am  sure  I  never  heard  a  young  lady 
spoken  of  for  the  first  time,  without  being  in 
formed  that  she  was  veiy  accomplished." 

We  leave  the  un amiable  Mr.  Darcy  snort 
ing  at  his  friend's  remark,  to  consider  the 
paucity  of  Mr.  Bingley's  list.  Tables,  screens, 


OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER          219 

and  purses  represent  but  the  first  beginnings 
of  that  misdirected  energy  which  for  the  best 
part  of  a  century  embellished  English  homes. 
The  truly  accomplished  young  lady  in  Miss 
More's  "  Crelebs "  paints  flowers  and  shells, 
draws  ruins,  gilds  and  varnishes  wood,  is  an 
adept  in  Japan  work,  and  stands  ready  to 
begin  modelling,  etching,  and  engraving.  The 
great  principle  of  ornamental  art  was  the  repro 
duction  of  an  object  —  of  any  object  —  in  an 
alien  material.  The  less  adapted  this  material 
was  to  its  purpose,  the  greater  the  difficulties 
it  presented  to  the  artist,  the  more  precious 
became  the  monstrous  masterpiece.  To  take  a 
plain  sheet  of  paper  and  draw  a  design  upon  it 
was  ignominious  in  its  simplicity;  but  to  con 
struct  the  same  design  out  of  paper  spirals, 
rolling  up  some  five  hundred  slips  with  uniform 
tightness,  setting  them  on  end,  side  by  side, 
and  painting  or  gilding  the  tops, — that  was  a 
feat  of  which  any  young  lady  might  be  proud. 
It  was  so  uncommonly  hard  to  do,  it  ought  to 
have  been  impossible.  Cutting  paper  with  fine 
sharp  scissors  and  a  knife  was  taught  in  schools 
(probably  in  Miss  Monflathers's  school,  though 


220          OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER 

Dickens  does  not  mention  it)  as  a  fashionable 
pastime.  The  "  white  design  "-  —  animals,  land 
scape,  or  marine — was  printed  on  a  black 
background,  which  was  cut  away  with  great 
dexterity,  the  spaces  being  small  and  intricate. 
When  all  the  black  paper  had  been  removed, 
the  flimsy  tracery  was  pasted  on  a  piece  of 
coloured  paper,  thus  presenting — after  hours 
of  patient  labour  —  much  the  same  appearance 
that  it  had  in  the  beginning.  It  was  then 
glassed,  framed,  and  presented  to  appreciative 
parents,  as  a  proof  of  their  daughter's  industry 
and  taste. 

The  most  famous  work  of  art  ever  made  out 
of  paper  was  probably  the  celebrated  " herbal" 
of  Mrs.  Delany, — Mrs.  Delany  whom  Burke 
pronounced  "the  model  of  an  accomplished 
gentlewoman."  She  acquired  her  accomplish 
ments  at  an  age  when  most  people  seek  to  re 
linquish  theirs,  —  having  learned  to  draw  when 
she  was  thirty,  to  paint  when  she  was  forty, 
and  to  write  verse  when  she  was  eighty-two. 
She  also  "excelled  in  embroidery  and  shell- 
work";  and  when  Miss  Burney  made  her  first 
visit  to  St.  James's  Place,  she  found  Mrs.  De- 


OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER          221 

lany's  walls  covered  with  "ornaments  of  her 
own  execution  of  striking  elegance,  in  cuttings 
and  variegated  stained  papers."  The  herbal, 
however,  was  the  crowning  achievement  of  her 
life.  It  contained  nearly  a  thousand  plants, 
made  of  thin  strips  of  coloured  paper,  pasted 
layer  over  layer  with  the  utmost  nicety  upon 
a  black  background,  and  producing  an  effect 
"  richer  than  painting." 

Cold  Winter  views  amid  his  realms  of  snow 
Delany's  vegetable  statues  blow  ; 
Smoothes  his  stern  brow,  delays  his  hoary  wing, 
And  eyes  with  wonder  all  the  blooms  of  Spring. 

The  flowers  were  copied  accurately  from  nature, 
and  florists  all  over  the  kingdom  vied  with  one 
another  in  sending  Mrs.  Delany  rare  and  beau 
tiful  specimens.  The  Queen  ardently  admired 
this  herbal,  and  the  King,  who  regarded  it  with 
veneration  not  un tinged  by  awe,  expressed 
his  feelings  by  giving  its  creator  a  house  at 
Windsor,  and  settling  upon  her  an  annuity  of 
three  hundred  pounds.  Yet  Miss  Seward  com 
plained  that  although  England  "  teemed  with 
genius,"  George  III  was  "no  Caesar  Augus 
tus,"  to  encourage  and  patronize  the  arts.  To 


222          OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER 

the  best  of  his  ability,  he  did.  His  conception 
of  genius  and  art  may  not  have  tallied  with 
that  of  Augustus;  but  when  an  old  lady  made 
paper  flowers  to  perfection,  he  gave  her  a  royal 
reward. 

Mrs.  Delany's  example  was  followed  in  court 
circles,  and  in  the  humbler  walks  of  life.  Shell- 
work,  which  was  one  of  her  accomplishments, 
became  the  rage.  Her  illustrious  friend,  the 
Duchess  of  Portland,  "  made  shell  frames  and 
feather  designs,  adorned  grottoes,  and  collected 
endless  objects  in  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdom."  Young  ladies  of  taste  made  flowers 
out  of  shells,  dyeing  the  white  ones  with  Brazil 
wood,  and  varnishing  them  with  gum  arabic.  A 
rose  of  red  shells,  with  a  heart  of  knotted  yel 
low  silk,  was  almost  as  much  admired  as  a 
picture  of  birds  with  their  feathers  pasted  on 
the  paper.  This  last  triumph  of  realism  pre 
sented  a  host  of  difficulties  to  the  perpetrator. 
When  the  bill  and  legs  of  the  bird  had  been 
painted  in  water  colours  on  heavy  Bristol- 
board,  the  space  for  its  body  was  covered  with 
a  paste  of  gum  arabic  as  thick  as  a  shilling. 
This  paste  was  kept  "tacky  or  clammy"  to 


OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER         223 

hold  the  feathers,  which  were  stripped  off  the 
poor  little  dead  bird,  and  stuck  on  the  pre 
pared  surface,  the  quills  being  cut  down  with 
a  knife.  Weights  were  used  to  keep  the  feathers 
in  place,  the  result  being  that  most  of  them 
adhered  to  the  lead  instead  of  to  the  Bristol- 
board,  and  came  off  discouragingly  when  the 
work  was  nearly  done.  As  a  combination  of 
art  and  nature,  the  bird  picture  had  no  rival 
except  the  butterfly  picture,  where  the  clipped 
wings  of  butterflies  were  laid  between  two 
sheets  of  gummed  paper,  and  the  "impres 
sions"  thus  taken,  reinforced  with  a  little  gild 
ing,  were  attached  to  a  painted  body.  It  may 
be  observed  that  the  quality  of  mercy  was  then 
a  good  deal  strained.  Mrs.  Montagu's  famous 
"feather-room,"  in  her  house  on  Portman 
Square,  was  ornamented  with  hangings  made 
by  herself  from  the  plumage  of  hundreds  of 
birds,  every  attainable  variety  being  repre 
sented;  yet  no  one  of  her  friends,  not  even 
the  sainted  Hannah  More,  ever  breathed  a 
sigh  of  regret  over  the  merry  little  lives  that 
were  wasted  for  its  meretricious  decorations. 
Much  time  and  ingenuity  were  devoted  by 


224          OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER 

industrious  young  people  to  the  making  of 
baskets,  and  no  material,  however  unexpected, 
came  amiss  to  their  patient  hands.  Allspice 
berries,  steeped  in  brandy  to  soften  them  and 
strung  on  wire,  were  very  popular ;  and  rice  bas 
kets  had  a  chaste  simplicity  of  their  own.  These 
last  were  made  of  pasteboard,  lined  with  silk 
or  paper,  the  grains  of  rice  being  gummed  on 
in  solid  diamond-shaped  designs.  If  the  deco 
ration  appeared  a  trifle  monotonous,  as  well  it 
might,  it  was  diversified  with  coloured  glass 
beads.  Indeed,  we  are  assured  that  "  baskets 
of  this  description  may  be  very  elegantly  orna 
mented  with  groups  of  small  shells,  little  arti 
ficial  bouquets,  crystals,  and  the  fine  feathers 
from  the  heads  of  birds  of  beautiful  plumage"; 
—  with  anything,  in  short,  that  could  be  pasted 
on  and  persuaded  to  stick.  When  the  supply  of 
glue  gave  out,  wafer  baskets  —  wafers  required 
only  moistening  —  or  alum  baskets  (made  of 
wire  wrapped  round  with  worsted,  and  steeped 
in  a  solution  of  alum,  which  was  coloured  yellow 
with  saffron  or  purple  with  logwood)  were  held, 
in  the  highest  estimation.  The  modern  mind, 
with  its  puny  resources,  is  bewildered  b;*  ll.o 


OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER          225 

multiplicity  of  materials  which  seem  to  have 
lain  scattered  around  the  domestic  hearth  a  hun 
dred  years  ago.  There  is  a  famous  old  receipt 
for  "  silvering  paper  without  silver,"  a  pro 
cess  designed  to  be  economical,  but  which  re 
quires  so  many  messy  and  alien  ingredients, 
like  "  Indian  glue,"  and  "  Muscovy  talc,"  and 
"  Venice  turpentine,"  and  "  Japan  size,"  and 
"  Chinese  varnish,"  that  mere  silver  seems  by 
comparison  a  cheap  and  common  thing.  Young 
ladies  whose  thrift  equalled  their  ingenuity 
made  their  own  varnish  by  boiling  isinglass  in 
a  quart  of  brandy,  —  a  lamentable  waste  of 
supplies. 

Genteel  parcels  were  always  wrapped  in 
silver  paper.  We  remember  how  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  Rosamond  tries  in  vain  to  make  one 
sheet  cover  the  famous  "  filigree  basket,"  which 
was  her  birthday  present  to  her  Cousin  Bell, 
and  which  pointed  its  own  moral  by  falling  to 
pieces  before  it  was  presented.  Rosamond's 
father  derides  this  basket  because  he  is  im 
plored  not  to  grasp  it  by  its  myrtle-wreathed 
handle.  "  But  what  is  the  use  of  the  handle," 
he  asks,  in  the  conclusive,  irritating  fashion  of 


226          OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER 

the  Edgeworthian  parent,  u  if  we  are  not  to 
take  hold  of  it  ?  And  pray  is  this  the  thing 
you  have  been  about  all  this  week?  I  have 
seen  you  dabbling  with  paste  and  rags,  and 
could  not  conceive  what  you  were  about." 

Rosamond's  half-guinea  —  her  godmother's 
gift  —  is  spent  buying  filigree  paper,  and  me 
dallions,  and  a  "  frost  ground  ''  for  this  basket, 
and  she  is  ruthlessly  shamed  by  its  unstable 
character ;  whereas  Laura,  who  gives  her  money 
secretly  to  a  little  lace-maker,  has  her  gener 
osity  revealed  at  exactly  the  proper  moment, 
and  is  admired  and  praised  by  all  the  company. 
Apart  from  Miss  Edgeworth's  conception  of 
life,  as  made  up  of  well-adjusted  punishments 
and  rewards,  a  half-guinea  does  seem  a  good 
deal  to  spend  on  filigree  paper ;  but  then  a  single 
sheet  of  gold  paper  cost  six  shillings,  unless 
gilded  at  home,  after  the  following  process, 
which  was  highly  commended  for  economy :  — 

"  Take  yellow  ochre,  grind  it  with  rain-water, 
and  lay  a  ground  with  it  all  over  the  paper, 
which  should  be  fine  wove.  When  dry,  take 
the  white  of  an  egg  and  about  a  quarter  of  an 
ounce  of  sugar  candy,  and  beat  them  together 


OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER          227 

until  the  sugar  candy  is  dissolved.  Then  strike 
it  all  over  the  ground  with  a  varnish  brush,  and 
immediately  lay  on  the  gold  leaf,  pressing  it 
down  with  a  piece  of  fine  cotton.  When  dry, 
polish  it  with  a  dog's  tooth  or  agate.  A  sheet 
of  this  paper  may  be  prepared  for  eighteen 
pence." 

No  wonder  little  Kosamond  was  unequal  to 
such  labour,  and  her  half-guinea  was  squan 
dered  in  extravagant  purchases.  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  trained  in  her  father's  theory  that  chil 
dren  should  be  always  occupied,  was  a  good 
deal  distressed  by  the  fruits  of  their  industry. 
The  "chattering  girls  cutting  up  silk  and  gold 
paper,"  whom  Miss  Austen  watched  with  uncon 
cern,  would  have  fretted  Miss  Edgeworth's  soul, 
unless  she  knew  that  sensible  needle-cases,  pin 
cushions,  and  work-bags  were  in  process  of  con 
struction.  Yet  the  celebrated  "rational  toy 
shop,"  with  its  hand-looms  instead  of  dolls,  and 
its  machines  for  drawing  in  perspective  instead 
of  tin  soldiers  and  Noah's  arks,  stood  respons 
ible  for  the  inutilities  she  scorned.  And  what 
of  the  charitable  lady  in  "  Lazy  Lawrence," 
who  is  "  making  a  grotto,"  and  buying  shells 


228          OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER 

and  fossils  for  its  decoration  ?  Even  a  filigree 
basket,  which  had  at  least  the  grace  of  imper- 
manence,  seems  desirable  by  comparison  with 
a  grotto.  It  will  be  remembered  also  that 
Madame  de  Rosier,  the  "  Good  French  Govern 
ess,"  traces  her  lost  son,  that  "  promising 
young  man  of  fourteen,"  by  means  of  a  box 
he  has  made  out  of  refuse  bits  of  shell  thrown 
aside  in  a  London  restaurant ;  while  the  son 
in  turn  discovers  a  faithful  family  servant 
through  the  medium  of  a  painted  pasteboard  dog, 
which  the  equally  ingenious  domestic  has  exposed 
for  sale  in  a  shop.  It  was  a  good  thing  in  Miss 
Edgeworth's  day  to  cultivate  the  "  ornamental 
arts,"  were  it  only  for  the  reunion  of  families. 
Pasteboard,  a  most  ungrateful  and  unyield 
ing  material,  was  the  basis  of  so  many  house 
hold  decorations  that  a  little  volume,  published 
in  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  is  devoted 
exclusively  to  its  possibilities.  This  book,  which 
went  through  repeated  editions,  is  called  "  The 
Art  of  Working  in  Pasteboard  upon  Scientific 
Principles  " ;  and  it  gives  minute  directions  for 
making  boxes,  baskets,  tea-trays,  caddies,  — 
even  candlesticks,  and  "  an  inkstand  in  the 


OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER         229 

shape  of  a  castle  with  a  tower,"  —  a  baffling 
architectural  design.  What  patience  and  inge 
nuity  must  have  been  expended  upon  this  paste 
board  castle,  which  had  a  wing  for  the  ink 
well,  a  wing  for  the  sand  box,  five  circular 
steps  leading  up  to  the  principal  entrance,  a 
terrace  which  was  a  drawer,  a  balcony  sur 
rounded  by  a  "  crenelled  screen,"  a  tower  to 
hold  the  quills,  a  vaulted  cupola  which  lifted 
like  a  lid,  and  a  lantern  with  a  "  quadrilateral 
pyramid "  for  its  roof,  surmounted  by  a  real 
pea  or  a  glass  bead  as  the  final  bit  of  decora 
tion.  There  is  a  drawing  of  this  edifice,  which 
is  as  imposing  as  its  dimensions  will  permit ; 
and  there  are  four  pages  of  mysterious  instruc 
tions  which  make  the  reader  feel  as  though  he 
were  studying  architecture  by  correspondence. 
Far  more  difficult  of  accomplishment,  and 
far  more  useless  when  accomplished,  —  for  they 
could  not  even  hold  pens  and  ink, — were  the 
Grecian  temples  and  Gothic  towers,  made  of 
pasteboard  covered  with  marbled  paper,  and 
designed  as  "  elegant  ornaments  for  the  mantel 
piece."  A  small  Ionic  temple  requires  ten  pages 
of  directions.  It  is  built  of  "  the  best  Bristol- 


230          OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER 

board,  except  the  shafts  of  the  pillars  and  some 
of  the  decorations,  which  are  made  of  royal 
drawing-paper " ;  and  its  manufacturers  are 
implored  not  to  spare  time,  trouble,  or  material, 
if  they  would  attain  to  anything  so  classic. 
"  The  art  of  working  in  pasteboard,"  says  the 
preface  of  this  engaging  little  book,  "  may  be 
carried  to  a  high  degree  of  usefulness  and  per 
fection,  and  may  eventually  be  productive  of 
substantial  benefits  to  young  persons  of  both 
sexes,  who  wisely  devote  their  leisure  hours  to 
pleasing,  quiet,  and  useful  recreations,  prefer 
ably  to  frivolous,  noisy,  and  expensive  amuse 
ments." 

A  pleasing,  quiet,  and  useful  recreation 
which  wasted  nothing  but  eyesight,  —  and  that 
nobody  valued,  —  was  pricking  pictures  with 
pins.  The  broad  lines  and  heavy  shadows  were 
pricked  with  stout  pins,  the  fine  lines  and 
high  lights  with  little  ones,  while  a  toothed 
wheel,  sharply  pointed,  was  used  for  large 
spaces  and  simple  decorative  designs.  This  was 
an  ambitious  field  of  art,  much  of  the  work 
being  of  a  microscopic  delicacy.  The  folds  of  a 
lady's  dress  could  be  pricked  in  such  film-like 


OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER          231 

waves  that  only  close  scrutiny  revealed  the 
thousand  tiny  holes  of  which  its  billowy  soft 
ness  was  composed.  The  cleanness  and  dryness 
of  pins  commend  them  to  our  taste  after  a 
long  contemplation  of  varnish  and  glue  pots; 
of  "poonah  work,"  which  was  a  sticky  sort  of 
stencilling;  of  "Japan  work,"  in  which  em 
bossed  figures  were  made  of  "  gum- water,  thick 
ened  to  a  proper  consistence  with  equal  parts 
of  bole  ammoniac  and  whiting"  ;  of  "  Chinese 
enamel,"  which  was  a  base  imitation  of  ebony 
inlaid  with  ivory ;  and  of  "  potichomanie," 
which  converted  a  piece  of  English  glass  into 
something  that  "  not  one  in  a  hundred  could 
tell  from  French  china."  We  sympathize  with 
the  refined  editor  of  the  "  Monthly  Museum," 
who  recommends  knotting  to  his  female  readers, 
not  only  because  it  had  the  sanction  of  a  queen, 

Who,  when  she  rode  in  coach  abroad, 
Was  always  knotting  threads  ; 

but  because  of  its  "  pure  nature  "  and  "  inno 
cent  simplicity."  "  I  cannot  but  think,"  says 
this  true  friend  of  my  sex,  "that  shirts  and 
smocks  are  unfit  for  any  lady  of  delicacy  to 
handle ;  but  the  shuttle  is  an  easy  flowing 


232          OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER 

object,  to  which  the  eye  may  remove  with  pro 
priety  and  grace." 

Grace  was  never  overlooked  in  our  great- 
grandmother's  day,  but  took  rank  as  an  im 
portant  factor  in  education.  A  London  school 
mistress,  offering  in  1815  some  advice  as  to 
the  music  "best  fitted  for  ladies,"  confesses 
that  it  is  hard  to  decide  between  the  "  wide 
range  "  of  the  pianoforte  and  the  harp-player's 
"  elegance  of  position,"  which  gives  to  her  in 
strument  "  no  small  powers  of  rivalry."  Sen 
timent  was  interwoven  with  every  accomplish 
ment.  Tender  mottoes,  like  those  which  Miss 
Euphemia  Dundas  entreats  Thaddeus  of  War 
saw  to  design  for  her,  were  painted  upon  boxes 
and  hand-screens.  Who  can  forget  the  white 
leather  "  souvenir,"  adorned  with  the  words 
"Toujours  cher,"  which  Miss  Euphemia  presses 
upon  Thaddeus,  and  which  that  attractive  but 
virtuous  exile  is  modestly  reluctant  to  accept. 
A  velvet  bracelet  embroidered  with  forget-me- 
nots  symbolized  friendship.  A  handkerchief, 
designed  as  a  gift  from  a  young  girl  to  her 
betrothed,  had  a  celestial  sphere  worked  in  one 
corner,  to  indicate  the  purity  of  their  flame ; 


OUR  GREAT-GRANDMOTHER          233 

a  bouquet  of  buds  and  blossoms  in  another,  to 
mark  the  pleasures  and  the  brevity  of  life; 
and,  in  a  third,  Cupid  playing  with  a  spaniel, 
"  as  an  emblem  of  the  most  passionate  fidelity." 
Even  samplers,  which  represented  the  first  step 
in  the  pursuit  of  accomplishments,  had  their 
emblematic  designs  no  less  than  their  moral 
axioms.  The  village  schoolmistress,  whom  Miss 
Mitford  knew  and  loved,  complained  that  all 
her  pupils  wanted  to  work  samplers  instead  of 
learning  to  sew;  and  that  all  their  mothers 
valued  these  works  of  art  more  than  they  did 
the  neatest  of  caps  and  aprons.  The  sampler 
stood  for  gentility  as  well  as  industry.  It  re 
flected  credit  on  the  family  as  well  as  on  the 
child.  At  the  bottom  of  a  faded  canvas,  worked 
more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  now  hang 
ing  in  a  great  museum  of  art,  is  this  inspiring 
verse :  — 

I  have  done  this  that  you  may  see 
What  care  my  parents  took  of  me. 
And  when  I  'm  dead  and  in  my  grave, 
This  piece  of  work  I  trust  you  '11  save. 

If  the  little  girl  who  embodied  her  high 
hopes  in  the  painful  precision  of  cross-stitch 
could  but  know  of  their  splendid  fulfilment ! 


THE  ALBUM   AMICORUM 

She  kept  an  album  too,  at  home, 

Well  stocked  with  all  an  album's  glories, 

Paintings  of  butterflies  and  Rome, 

Patterns  for  trimmings,  Persian  stories. 

PRAKD. 

MODERN  authors  who  object  to  being  asked 
for  their  autographs,  and  who  complain  pite- 
ously  of  the  persecutions  they  endure  in  fhis 
regard,  would  do  well  to  consider  what  they 
have  gained  by  being  born  in  an  age  when 
commercialism  has  supplanted  compliment. 
Had  they  been  their  own  great-grandfathers, 
they  would  have  been  expected  to  present  to 
their  female  friends  the  verses  they  now  sell 
to  magazines.  They  would  have  written  a  few 
playful  and  affectionate  lines  every  time  they 
dined  out,  and  have  paid  for  a  week's  hospi 
tality  with  sentimental  tributes  to  their  hostess. 
And  not  their  hostess  only.  Her  budding 
daughters  would  have  looked  for  some  recog 
nition  of  their  charms,  and  her  infant  son 
would  have  presented  a  theme  too  obvious  for 


THE  ALBUM  AMICORUM  235 

disregard.  It  is  recorded  that  when  Campbell 
spent  two  days  at  the  country  seat  of  Mr. 
James  Craig,  the  Misses  Craig  kept  him  busy 
most  of  that  time  composing  verses  for  their 
albums,  —  a  pleasant  way  of  entertaining  a 
poet  guest.  On  another  occasion  he  writes  to 
Mrs.  Arkwright,  lamenting,  though  with  much 
good-humour,  the  importunities  of  mothers. 
"  Mrs.  Grahame  has  a  plot  upon  me  that  I 
should  write  a  poem  upon  her  boy,  three  years 
old.  Oh,  such  a  boy !  But  in  the  way  of  writ 
ing  lines  on  lovely  children,  I  am  engaged 
three  deep,  and  dare  not  promise." 

It  seems  that  parents  not  only  petitioned  for 
these  poetic  windfalls,  but  pressed  their  claims 
hard.  Campbell,  one  of  the  most  amiable  of 
men,  yielded  in  time  to  this  demand,  as  he  had 
yielded  to  many  others,  and  sent  to  little  Master 
Grahame  some  verses  of  singular  ineptitude. 

Sweet  bud  of  life !  thy  future  doom 

Is  present  to  my  eyes, 
And  joyously  I  see  thee  bloom 

In  Fortune's  fairest  skies. 

One  day  that  breast,  scarce  conscious  now, 
Shall  burn  with  patriot  flame ; 


236  THE   ALBUM   AMICORUM 

And,  fraught  with  love,  that  little  brow 
Shall  wear  the  wreath  of  fame. 

There  are  many  more  stanzas,  but  these  are 
enough  to  make  us  wonder  why  parents  did  not 
let  the  poet  alone.  Perhaps,  if  they  had,  he 
would  have  volunteered  his  services.  We  know 
that  when  young  Fanny  Kemble  showed  him 
her  nosegay  at  a  ball,  and  asked  how  she  should 
keep  the  flowers  from  fading,  he  answered 
hardily :  "  Give  them  to  me,  and  I  will  immor 
talize  them,"  —  an  enviable  assurance  of  re 
nown. 

Album  verses  date  from  the  old  easy  days, 
when  rhyming  was  regarded  as  a  gentlemanly 
accomplishment  rather  than  as  a  means  of  live 
lihood.  Titled  authors,  poets  wealthy  and  well 
born  —  for  there  were  always  such  —  naturally 
addressed  themselves  to  the  ladies  of  their  ac 
quaintance.  They  could  say  with  Lord  Chester 
field  that  they  thanked  Heaven  they  did  not 
have  to  live  by  their  brains.  It  was  a  theory, 
long  and  fondly  cherished,  that  poetry  was  not 
common  merchandise,  to  be  bought  and  sold 
like  meal  and  malt ;  that  it  was,  as  Burns 
admirably  saidj  either  above  price  or  worth 


THE  ALBUM  AMICORUM  .  237 

nothing  at  all.  Later  on,  when  poets  became 
excellent  men  of  business,  when  Byron  had 
been  seduced  by  Murray's  generosity,  when 
Moore  drove  his  wonderful  bargains,  and  poetic 
narrative  was  the  best-selling  commodity  in  the 
market,  we  hear  a  rising  murmur  of  protest 
against  the  uncommercial  exactions  of  the  al 
bum.  Sonneteers  who  could  sell  their  wares 
for  hard  cash  no  longer  felt  repaid  by  a  word 
of  flattery.  Even  the  myrtle  wreaths  which 
crowned  the  victors  of  the  Bath  Easton  con 
tests  appeared  but  slender  compensation,  save 
in  Miss  Seward's  eyes,  or  in  Mrs.  Hayley's. 
When  Mrs.  Hayley  went  to  Bath  in  1781,  and 
witnessed  the  solemn  ceremonies  inaugurated 
by  Lady  Miller ;  when  she  saw  the  laurels,  and 
myrtles,  and  fluttering  ribbons,  her  soul  was 
fired  with  longing,  and  she  set  to  work  to  per 
suade  her  husband  that  the  Bath  Easton  prize 
was  not  wholly  beneath  his  notice.  The  author 
of  "  The  Triumphs  of  Temper  "  was  naturally 
fearful  of  lowering  his  dignity  by  sporting  with 
minor  poets ;  and  there  was  much  wifely  arti 
fice  in  her  assumption  that  such  playfulness 
on  his  part  would  be  recognized  as  true  con- 


238  THE   ALBUM  AMICORUM 

descension.  "  If  you  should  feel  disposed  to 
honour  this  slight  amusement;  with  a  light  com 
position,  I  am  persuaded  you  will  oblige  very 
highly."  The  responsive  Hay  ley  was  not  un 
willing  to  oblige,  provided  no  one  would  sus 
pect  him  of  being  in  earnest.  He  "  scribbled  " 
the  desired  lines  "  in  the  most  rapid  manner," 
"  literally  in  a  morning  and  a  half  "  (Byron 
did  not  take  much  longer  to  write  "  The  Cor 
sair  "),  and  sent  them  off  to  Bath,  where  they 
were  "  admired  beyond  description,"  and  won 
the  prize,  so  that  the  gratified  Mrs.  Hayley 
appeared  that  night  with  the  myrtle  wreath 
woven  in  her  hair.  The  one  famous  contribu 
tor  to  the  Bath  Easton  vase  who  did  not  win 
a  prize  was  Sheridan.  He,  being  entreated  to 
write  for  it  some  verses  on  "  Charity,"  com 
plied  in  these  heartless  lines  :  — 

THE  VASE   SPEAKS 

For  heaven's  sake  bestow  on  me 
A  little  wit,  for  that  would  be 
Indeed  an  act  of  charity. 

Complimentary  addresses  —  those  flowery 
tributes  which  seem  so  ardent  and  so  facile  — 
were  beginning  to  drag  a  little,  even  in  Wai- 


THE  ALBUM  AMICORUM  239 

pole's  day.  He  himself  was  an  adept  in  the  art 
of  polite  adulation,  and  wrote  without  a  blush 
the  obliging  comparison  between  the  Princess 
Amelia  and  Venus  (greatly  to  the  disparage 
ment  of  Venus),  which  the  flattered  lady  found 
in  the  hand  of  the  marble  Apollo  at  Stowe. 
"  All  women  like  all  or  any  praise,"  said  Lord 
Byron,  who  had  reason  to  know  the  sex.  The 
Princess  Amelia,  stout,  sixty,  and  "  strong  as 
a  Brunswick  lion,"  was  pleased  to  be  desig 
nated  as  a  "  Nymph,"  and  to  be  told  she  had 
routed  Venus  from  the  field.  Walpole  also 
presented  to  Madame  de  Boufflers  a  "  petite 
gentillesse,"  when  she  visited  Strawberry  Hill ; 
and  it  became  the  painful  duty  of  the  Due  de 
Nivernois  to  translate  these  lines  into  French, 
on  the  occasion  of  Miss  Pelham's  grand  fete  at 
Esher  Place.  The  task  kept  him  absorbed  and 
preoccupied  most  of  the  day,  "  lagging  behind" 
while  the  others  made  a  cheerful  tour  of  the 
farms,  or  listened  to  the  French  horns  and 
hautboys  on  the  lawn.  Finally,  when  all  the 
guests  were  drinking  tea  and  coffee  in  the  Bel- 
videre,  poor  Nivernois  was  delivered  of  his 
verselets,  which  were  received  with  a  polite 


240  THE  ALBUM  AMICORUM 

semblance  of  gratification,  and  for  the  remain 
ing  hours  his  spirit  was  at  peace.  But  it  does 
seem  a  hard  return  to  exact  for  hospitality,  and 
must  often  have  suggested  to  men  of  letters 
the  felicity  of  staying  at  home. 

Miss  Seward  made  it  her  happy  boast  that 
the  number  and  the  warmth  of  Mr.  Hayley's 
tributes  —  inserted  duly  in  her  album  —  raised 
her  to  a  rivalry  with  Swift's  Stella,  or  Prior's 
Chloe.  "  Our  four  years'  correspondence  has 
been  enriched  with  a  galaxy  of  little  poetic 
gems  of  the  first  water."  Nor  was  the  lady  back 
ward  in  returning  compliment  for  compliment. 
That  barter  of  praise,  that  exchange  of  felici 
tation,  which  is  both  so  polite  and  so  profitable, 
was  as  well  understood  by  our  sentimental  an 
cestors  as  it  is  in  this  hard-headed  age.  Indeed, 
I  am  not  sure  that  the  Muse  did  not  sometimes 
calculate  more  closely  then  than  she  ventures 
to  do  to-day.  We  know  that  Canon  Seward 
wrote  an  elegiac  poem  on  a  young  nobleman 
who  was  held  to  be  dying,  but  who  —  per 
versely  enough  —  recovered  ;  whereupon  the 
reverend  eulogist  changed  the  name,  and  trans 
ferred  his  heartfelt  lamentations  to  another 


THE  ALBUM  AMICORUM  241 

youth  whose  death  was  fully  assured.  In  the 
same  business-like  spirit  Miss  Seward  paid  back 
Mr.  Hayley  flattery  for  flattery,  until  even 
the  slow-witted  satirists  of  the  period  made 
merry  over  this  commerce  of  applause. 

Miss  Seward.     Pride  of  Sussex,  England's  glory, 

Mr.  Hayley,  is  that  you  ? 
Mr.  Hayley,       Ma'am,  you  carry  all  before  you, 

Trust  me,  Lichfield  swan,  you  do. 
Miss  Seward.     Ode,  dramatic,  epic,  sonnet, 

Mr.  Hayley,  you  're  divine  ! 
Mr.  Hayley.       Ma'am,  I  '11  give  my  word  upon  it, 

You  yourself  are  all  the  Nine. 

Moore,  as  became  a  poet  of  ardent  tempera 
ment,  wrote  the  most  gallant  album  verses  of 
his  day ;  for  which  reason,  and  because  his  star 
of  fame  rode  high,  he  endured  sharp  persecu 
tion  at  the  hands  of  admiring  but  covetous 
friends.  Young  ladies  asked  him  in  the  most 
offhand  manner  to  "  address  a  poem "  to 
them ;  and  women  of  rank  smiled  on  him  in 
ballrooms,  and  confided  to  him  that  they  were 
keeping  their  albums  virgin  of  verse  until 
"  an  introduction  to  Mr.  Moore  "  should  enable 
them  to  request  him  to  write  on  the  opening 
page.  "  I  fight  this  off  as  well  as  I  can,"  he 


242  THE  ALBUM   AMICORUM 

tells  Lord  Byron,  who  knew  both  the  relent- 
lessness  of  such  demands  and  the  compliant 
nature  of  his  friend.  On  one  occasion  Lady 
Holland  showed  Moore  some  stanzas  which 
Lord  Holland  had  written  in  Latin  and  in 
English,  on  the  subject  of  a  snuff-box  given  her 
by  Napoleon ;  bidding  him  imperiously  "  do 
something  of  the  kind,"  and  adding  that  she 
greatly  desired  a  corresponding  tribute  from 
Lord  Byron.  Moore  wisely  declined  to  make 
any  promises  for  Byron  (one  doubts  whether 
the  four  lines  which  that  nobleman  eventu 
ally  contributed  afforded  her  ladyship  much 
pleasure),  but  wrote  his  own  verses  before 
he  was  out  of  bed  the  next  morning,  and 
carried  them  to  Holland  House,  expecting  to 
breakfast  with  its  mistress.  He  found  her, 
however,  in  such  a  captious  mood,  so  out  of 
temper  with  all  her  little  world,  that,  although 
he  sat  down  to  the  table,  he  did  not  venture  to 
hint  his  hunger ;  and  as  no  one  asked  him  to 
eat  or  drink,  he  slipped  off  in  half  an  hour, 
and  sought  (his  poem  still  in  his  pocket)  the 
more  genial  hospitality  of  liosset's  restaurant. 
Had  all  tliis  happened  twenty  years  earlier, 


THE   ALBUM  AMICORUM  243 

Moore's  self-esteem  would  have  been  deeply 
wounded ;  but  the  poet  was  by  now  a  man  of 
mark,  and  could  afford  to  laugh  at  his  own 
discomfiture. 

Moore's  album  verses  may  be  said  to  make 
up  in  warmth  what  they  lack  in  address.  Minor 
poets  —  minims  like  William  Robert  Spencer 

—  surpassed   him    easily  in    adroitness ;    and 
sometimes    won    for   themselves    slender    but 
abiding  reputations    by  expressing  with    con 
summate    ease    sentiments  they  did  not  feel. 
Spencer's  pretty  lines  beginning,  — 

Too  late  I  stayed,  —  forgive  the  crime  ! 

Unheeded  flew  the  hours : 
How  noiseless  falls  the  foot  of  time 

That  only  treads  on  flowers  ! 

—  lines  which  all  our  grandmothers  had  by 
heart  —  may  still  be  found  in  compilations  of 
English   verse.    Their    dexterous   allusions  to 
the  diamond  sparks  in  Time's  hour-glass,  and 
to  the  bird -of -paradise  plumage  in   his  grey 
wings,  their  veiled  and  graceful  flattery,  con 
trast  pleasantly  with  Moore's  Hibernian  bold 
ness,  with  his  offhand  demand  to  be  paid  in 
kisses  for  his  songs  — 


244  THE   ALBUM   AMICOBUM 

That  rosy  mouth  alone  can  bring 

What  makes  the  bard  divine  ; 
Oh,  Lady  !  how  my  lip  would  sing1, 

If  once  't  were  prest  to  thine. 

A  discreet  young  woman  might  have  hesitated 
to  show  t/iis  album  page  to  friends. 

Byron's  "tributes,"  when  he  paid  them,  were 
singularly  chill.  He  may  have  buried  his  heart 
at  Mrs.  Spencer  Smith's  feet ;  but  the  lines  in 
her  album  which  record  this  interment  are 
eloquent  of  a  speedy  resurrection.  When  Lady 
Blessington  demanded  some  verses,  he  wrote 
them  ;.  but  he  explained  with  almost  insulting 
lucidity  that  his  heart  was  as  grey  as  his  head 
(he  was  thirty-one),  and  that  he  had  nothing 
warmer  than  friendship  to  offer  in  place  of  ex 
tinguished  affections.  Moore  must  have  wearied 
painfully  of  albums  and  of  their  rapacious  de 
mands  ;  yet  to  the  end  of  his  life  he  could  be 
harassed  into  feigning  a  poetic  passion ;  but 
Byron  stood  at  bay.  He  was  a  hunted  creature, 
and  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  taught  him 
savage  methods  of  escape. 

There  are  people  who,  from  some  delicacy  of 
mental  fibre,  find  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  be 


THE   ALBUM  AMICORUM  245 

rude  ;  and  there  are  people  who  —  like  Charles 
Lamb  —  have  a  curious  habit  of  doing  what 
they  do  not  want  to  do,  and  what  they  know  is 
not  worth  doing,  for  the  sake  of  giving  pleasure 
to  some  utterly  insignificant  acquaintance.  The 
first  class  lacks  a  valuable  weapon  in  life's  war 
fare.  The  second  class  is  so  small,  and  the 
motives  which  govern  it  are  so  inscrutable,  that 
we  are  apt  to  be  exasperated  by  its  amiability. 
It  is  easy  to  sympathize  with  Thackeray,  who, 
being  badgered  to  write  in  an  album  already 
graced  by  the  signatures  of  several  distinguished 
musicians, said  curtly:  "What!  among  all  those 
fiddlers  !  "  This  hardy  British  superciliousness 
commends  itself  to  our  sense  of  humour,  no 
less  than  to  our  sense  of  self -protection.  A  great 
deal  has  been  said,  especially  by  Frenchmen, 
about  the  wisdom  of  polite  denials ;  but  a  rough 
word,  spoken  in  time,  is  seldom  without  weight 
in  England. 

Yet,  for  a  friend,  Thackeray  found  no  labour 
hard.  The  genial  tolerance  of  "  The  Pen  and  the 
Album  "  suggests  something  akin  to  affection 
for  these  pillaging  little  books  when  the  right 
people  owned  them,  —  when  they  belonged  to 


240  THE   ALBUM   AMICORUM 

44  Chesham  Place."  Locker  tells  a  pleasant  story 
of  meeting  Thackeray  in  Pall  Mall,  on  bis  way 
to  Kensington,  and  offering  to  join  him  in  his 
walk.  This  offer  was  declined,  Thackeray  ex 
plaining  that  he  had  some  rhymes  trotting 
through  his  head,  and  that  he  was  trying  to 
polish  them  off  in  the  course  of  a  solitary  stroll. 
A  few  days  later  they  met  again,  and  Thack 
eray  said,  "  I  Rnished  those  verses,  and  they  are 
very  nearly  being  very  good.  I  call  them  4  Mrs. 
Katherine's  Lantern/  I  did  them  for  Dickens's 
daughter." 

44  Very  nearly  being  very  good  !  "  This  is  an 
author's  modest  estimate.  Headers  there  are 
who  have  found  them  so  absolutely  good  that 
they  leaven  the  whole  heavy  mass  of  album 
verse.  Shall  not  a  century  of  extortion  on  the 
one  side  and  debility  on  the  other  be  forgiven, 
because  upon  one  blank  page,  the  property  of 
one  thrice  fortunate  young  woman,  were  written 
these  lines,  fragrant  with  imperishable  senti 
ment  :  - 

When  he  was  young  as  you  are  young1, 
When  he  was  young,  and  lutes  were  strung, 
And  love-lamps  in  the  casement  hung. 


THE  ALBUM  AMICORUM  247 

But  when  we  turn  to  Lamb,  and  find  him 
driving  his  pen  along  its  unwilling  way,  and 
admitting  ruefully  that  the  road  was  hard,  we 
see  the  reverse  of  the  medal,  and  we  resent 
that  inexplicable  sweetness  of  temper  which 
left  him  defenceless  before  marauders. 

My  feeble  Muse,  that  fain  her  best  would 
Write  at  command  of  Frances  Westwood, 
But  feels  her  wits  not  in  their  best  mood. 

Why  should  Frances  Westwood  have  com 
manded  his  services  ?  Why  should  Frances 
Brown,  "  engaged  to  a  Mr.  White,"  have  wrung 
from  him  a  dozen  lines  of  what  we  should  now 
call  "  copy  "  ?  She  had  no  recognizable  right  to 
that  copy ;  but  Lamb  confided  to  Mrs.  Moxon 
that  he  had  sent  it  to  her  at  twenty-four  hours' 
notice,  because  she  was  going  to  be  married  and 
start  with  her  husband  for  India.  Also  that  he 
had  forgotten  what  he  had  written,  save  only 
two  lines :  — 

May  your  fame 
And  fortune,  Frances,  Whiten  with  your  name  ! 

of  which  conceit  he  was  innocently  proud. 

Mrs.  Moxon  (Emma  Isola)  was  herself  an 
old  and  hardened  offender.  Her  album,  enriched 


248  THE  ALBUM   AMICORUM 

with  the  spoils  of  a  predatory  warfare,  travelled 
far  afield,  extorting  its  tribute  of  verse.  We 
find  Lamb  first  paying,  as  was  natural,  his 
own  tithes,  and  then  actually  aiding  and  abet 
ting  injustice  by  sending  the  book  to  Mr.  Proc 
ter  (Barry  Cornwall),  with  an  irresistible 
appeal  for  support. 

"I  have  another  favour  to  beg,  which  is  the 
beggarliest  of  beggings ;  a  few  lines  of  verse 
for  a  young  friend's  album  (six  will  be  enough). 
M.  Burney  will  tell  you  who  I  want  'ein  for. 
A  girl  of  gold.  Six  lines  —  make  'em  eight  — 
signed  Barry  C-  — .  They  need  not  be  very 
good,  as  I  chiefly  want  'em  as  a  foil  to  mine. 
But  I  shall  be  seriously  obliged  by  any  refuse 
scraps.  We  are  in  the  last  ages  of  the  world, 
when  St.  Paul  prophesied  that  women  should 
be 4  headstrong  lovers  of  their  own  wills,  having 
albums.'  I  fled  hither  to  escape  the  albumean 
persecution,  and  had  not  been  in  my  new  house 
twenty-four  hours  when  a  daughter  of  the  next 
house  came  in  with  a  friend's  album,  to  beg  a 
contribution,  and,  the  following  day,  intimated 
she  had  one  of  her  own.  Two  more  have  sprung 
up  since.  '  If  I  take  the  wings  of  the  morning, 


THE  ALBUM  AMICORUM  249 

and  fly  unto  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth, 
there  will  albums  be.'  New  Holland  has  albums. 
The  age  is  to  be  complied  with." 

"  Ask  for  this  little  book  a  token  of  remem 
brance  from  friends,  and  from  fellow  students, 
and  from  wayfarers  whom  you  may  never  see 
again.  He  who  gives  you  his  name  and  a  few 
kind  words,  gives,  you  a  treasure  which  shall 
keep  his  memory  green." 

So  wrote  Goethe  —  out  of  the  abyss  of  Ger 
man  sentimentality —  in  his  son's  album ;  and 
the  words  have  a  pleasant  ring  of  good  fellow 
ship  and  unforced  fraternity.  They  are  akin  to 
those  gracious  phrases  with  which  the  French 
monarchy  —  " despotism  tempered  by  epigram" 
—  was  wont  to  designate  the  taxes  that  de 
voured  the  land.  There  was  a  charming  polite 
ness  in  the  assumption  that  taxes  were  free 
gifts,  gladly  given ;  but  those  who  gave  them 
knew. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


ON   THE 


OVERDUE. 

===== 

OCT    24   1932 


^ 
f  6 


1937 


SEP  30   1935 
OCT  5  1940 

OCT  18 1940  M 
FEB 


21 


OCI24J 
J9-.28-U 


SIP 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


